


A Thousand Years

by damndonnergirls



Series: May the Gods Be Ever In Your Favor [4]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Australia, Banners & Icons, Cover Art, Culture, Denmark - Freeform, Embedded Images, Europe, F/M, Female Friendship, Friendship, Iceland, Languages and Linguistics, Male Friendship, Minnesota, Multiple Religion & Lore Sources, Nordics, Norway (Country), Philosophy, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Romance, Scandinavia, Seattle, Sweden - Freeform, Third Culture Kids, Travel, Travelogue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 05:06:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 85,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6552211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damndonnergirls/pseuds/damndonnergirls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the glaciers of Iceland to the rune stones of Sweden, Gale and Madge travel across northern Europe, unknowingly retracing the steps of the Viking warrior Gæl and his beloved Margaretha. A modern sequel to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/5660476/chapters/13037581"><i>Enthralled</i></a>, but can stand alone. <b>Gadge</b> with <b>Odesta</b> (Iceland), <b>Thelly</b> (Norway), <b>Jorius</b> (Denmark), <b>Clato</b> (Sweden), and <b>Everlark</b> (United States). </p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6552211/chapters/15051172">NEW! Chapter 17: <em>Oppvåkning</em> (Awakening)</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Enda (End)

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from [FFN](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10763909/1/A-Thousand-Years).  
>  First published on October 17, 2014.  
>  Minor edits throughout.

_Spring 2014_

 

It was raining.

A tall, handsome young man was chasing after a willowy blonde in a black dress, calling out her name.

"Madge," he panted, an umbrella in his hand. "Madge, wait."

_Too late,_ Madge Undersee thought. Two seconds in this downpour and it had already soaked her to the bone. _A lot can happen in two seconds._

Two seconds and her hair was already plastered to her forehead, dripping water into her eyes, making it all but impossible to see her boyfriend Seneca hurrying toward her in his previously immaculate three-piece suit.

Two seconds and her own dress was already like a second skin, clinging almost obscenely to every curve on her body. _Dad would have had a fit._

A suspicious dampness that had nothing to do with the rain blurred her vision.

The umbrella sent water spraying in all directions when Seneca finally managed to wrangle it open. He quickly held it up over her head. "Sorry," he apologized, looking at her anxiously. "Your dress—"

"Don't worry about it." _Worse things have happened._

Seneca hesitated for a split second before pulling her into his arms. "Maysilee and Haymitch are already there," he whispered, his lips brushing her ear.

_Aunt Maysilee._

"I'm not ready," Madge said, burying her face in the crook of Seneca's neck, breathing in the designer perfume that complemented hers exactly. Wearing his-and-hers scents had been his idea, when they first started dating six months ago. His parents and her parents were friends, and while they were supportive, they had been surprised and not as optimistic about the match as Madge had expected them to be. _Not that it matters anymore._

Seneca's chest rose and fell as he sighed. "Nobody ever is."

Madge's bottom lip started to quiver. "I wish—I only wish—"

A taxi pulled up next to them, and her heart leaped at the sight of the familiar dark-haired head that emerged from it.

"You came," was all Madge could say.

The new arrival tore her away from Seneca and hugged her fiercely. "I said I would, didn't? I talked to my adviser and got on the first flight out of Iceland I could find. Grad school can wait."

Madge was weeping openly now. "You came," she repeated, her chest heaving with sobs.

"Shh, shh," her best friend said, her own voice breaking as she stroked Madge's hair and held her close. "Annie's here."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

_SEATTLE (Associated Press)—Residents of the town of Vostead, WA, braved torrential rains and came out in droves yesterday afternoon to pay their last respects to their departed mayor Eric Undersee, 54, and his wife Mathilde, 51, who were killed a few days ago in the 100th mass shooting in the United States since New Year's Day 2014._

_A lone gunman opened fire at a Vostead High School assembly where the mayor and his wife were invited guests. The school's principal, three teachers, and eleven students were wounded. Besides the Undersees and the gunman who shot himself at the end of his rampage, there were no other casualties._

_The Undersees are survived by their only child, Margaret, 25._

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

"How's she holding up?" Haymitch Abernathy asked gruffly, swirling the whiskey around in his glass. It was the morning after the funeral, and he was sitting around Eric and Mathilde's kitchen table with little Annika Cresta—well, not so little anymore—while his wife Maysilee went and talked to Madge in her old room.

Annie held her cup of chamomile tea with both hands, savoring the warmth of it. "I'm a little worried," his niece's best friend admitted. "She's not crying anymore. She hasn't, since the funeral. And she doesn't talk about her feelings... whenever she opens her mouth, it's facts, the most cut-and-dried things you can think of. I mean, she's not the most outwardly expressive person to begin with, but this is different. It's hard to get any reaction out of her."

"You've been friends for how many years now? Twenty?"

"Yep," Annie confirmed, taking a sip of her tea. "We met at pre-ballet. Or so people tell us; neither of us can actually remember what happened. It might as well be a lifetime ago, because as far as I know Madge has always been... there."

Haymitch nodded in understanding. "I know the feeling. It was like that for me and May."

"I thought you met when you were sixteen?"

"We did. But I'll be damned if you could convince me that she wasn't around for all the years before."

Haymitch knocked back his whiskey and poured himself another glass. It seemed a bit excessive for ten o'clock in the morning, but Annie had known Madge's uncle long enough to recognize that it was Haymitch's idea of breakfast.

His next question caught her off guard. "Is Madge's boyfriend any help at all?"

Annie was surprised to hear the hostility in his tone. "You don't like Seneca."

"He's a decent enough fellow," Haymitch granted. "But he's just not right for Madge, and if you ask May she'll tell you the same thing. Even Eric and Mat thought so."

"I know what you mean," Annie said. Madge and Seneca cared for each other deeply; she knew that much. But there was always something missing, something Annie couldn't quite put her finger on. Or, rather, something she absolutely _could_ put her finger on, only she was too afraid to say it out loud, worried that she might be wrong, dreading that she might be right.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Madge was sitting up in bed, tapping away at her laptop and surrounded by newspapers, when Maysilee came in.

"Madge, honey," her aunt said, her forehead creased in concern. "What are you doing?"

"Documenting," Madge answered in a neutral tone. She chewed on her lip as she peered at a copy of the _Seattle Times_. Maysilee had been studiously avoiding the media since her twin's death, directing all of the reporters to Haymitch who then told them, in no uncertain terms, to fuck off. And yet here Madge was, devouring every article, every mention of the shooting that she could find. _Gun control advocates up in arms over local tragedy._

Maysilee sank down on the bed next to her niece. "I can see that, but why?"

The younger blonde pressed her lips together so tightly they turned white, and Maysilee thought that her niece would break down and cry. But Madge's eyes stayed resolutely dry. "I don't want to forget."

"Okay, sweetie. If this is what you need to do... I'll support it."

Madge turned to look at her aunt with those indigo eyes, and in that moment she looked so much like Mathilde had in her twenties that Maysilee's heart ached.

"It hurts so much." Madge's voice was plaintive, wounded. "It hurts, physically. Here." She gestured toward her heart, her stomach, her head. "Everywhere."

Maysilee opened her arms, and Madge crawled in. For a while, they held each other in silence.

"The first few days... I couldn't breathe," Maysilee said quietly. "It felt as if my lungs had been torn from my body. It was always the two of us together, and now… it's not." She pushed Madge's hair away from her face. "But then I look at you, and I know she isn't really gone. Even though you are your own person, I see so much of her in you. I look at you, and it's like turning back time."

The corner of Madge's mouth twitched slightly. "That's a lot to live up to."

"I can't promise you that things will get better, Madge." Maysilee pressed a kiss to her niece's temple. "But it will go on."

Madge nodded, and pulled herself upright. She ran a finger around the edge of the box Maysilee had brought. "What's this?"

"Oh, just some things that Grandpa Donner left us when he died. I've been holding on to them, but I think it's time to pass them on to you."

Madge lifted the lid, and immediately the musty but comforting smell of old books filled her nostrils. She picked one up and leafed through it, but it was in a language she couldn't even identify. She ran her eyes down the page, trying to find words she could actually pronounce. Finally, she came across a name that sounded vaguely familiar. "Vik Hallvardson."

She looked up at her aunt. "I thought we were German."

"We are," Maysilee said. "But we're lots of other things, too. You know, out of all the states, Washington has one of the highest populations of Scandinavian Americans."

"I thought they were mostly in the Midwest." Annie's older brother Rafe had gone to college in Minnesota, and for a time he had dated a girl from Minneapolis. She'd given him a Minnesota Vikings jersey.

"Oh, they are. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa… the Dakotas are up there, too." Maysilee was a statistician by profession. "But there's a fair few here, and in Oregon and California. In fact, Vostead is an Anglicization of Scandinavian words. It means 'wet place'."

"You're kidding."

"Swear to God." Maysilee rummaged around in the box, and came up with a silver, T-shaped pendant engraved with intricate twists and turns. "Or, more appropriately, swear to gods."

Madge recognized the symbol. "Mjolnir. Thor's hammer."

"Do you remember what Thursday—Thor's day—is in German?"

If Maysilee had blinked, she would have missed it, but for two seconds the ghost of a smile appeared on Madge's face for the first time since her parents died. " _Donnerstag_."

"That's right." Maysilee placed the Mjolnir pendant in Madge's open palm and closed her niece's fingers around it. "Donner is German for thunder."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

 

_St. Paul, Minnesota_

 

"Gale. _Gale_. Hey asshole, wake up."

Gale Hawthorne opened one crusty eye experimentally, and decided the throbbing in his skull wasn't worth it. He rolled over in bed and pulled the quilt up over his head. "Go away," he mumbled, hoping his friend and roommate Bristel would get the hint.

"I take it things didn't go too well with Katniss."

_You have no idea._ Gale had been so drunk that he'd passed out on his stomach, and he could smell the booze on the drool on his pillow. The box with his grandmother's engagement ring was still in the pocket of his jeans, pressing painfully against his thigh.

For what seemed like the hundredth time in the past twenty-four hours, Gale wondered what the hell had possessed him to propose to Katniss Everdeen. Sure, she was his girlfriend, and he was crazy about her, had been for nearly a decade now.

Sure, they were getting to be that age when things like marriage started to be an actual possibility and not just some vague reference to the future. Katniss was twenty-five now, and Gale was twenty-seven. When Gale's parents were twenty-seven, Gale was in second grade.

Sure, Katniss and Gale were, in the eyes of all their friends at least, an old married couple already. They had gotten together when Katniss was seventeen and Gale was nineteen, and before that they'd been best friends for two years. It had always been Gale and Katniss, Katniss and Gale. Anything else was absurd. Anything else was unthinkable.

But Katniss had never been very good at relationships, or emotions, or anything like that, really. She'd been almost pathologically oblivious to his hints and advances back in high school. It wasn't until Gale went off to college, and Katniss flared up with hot jealousy over his string of one-night stands there, that she finally decided to claim Gale for herself. Even after that, Gale always suspected he was more into her than she would ever be into him, a feeling that wounded his ego more than he would ever admit to anyone. He was Gale "Love 'Em and Leave 'Em" Hawthorne, for god's sake. He was a legend.

His suspicions were confirmed yesterday, when they drove out to Minnehaha Falls—the place where they had their first kiss—and Katniss dumped him before he could even get down on one knee.

"We used to be good together, Gale," she said. "But we've changed, and we're not anymore."

There was no arguing with that. After eight years of dating, the magic had begun to wear off. Half the time they were at each other's throats, and the other half they were freezing each other out. At first Gale didn't mind too much, because the makeup sex was _great_ , but in time even that had fizzled out. He grew more and more possessive, and Katniss grew more and more resentful. She repeatedly refused to move in with him and Bristel and their friend Thom, choosing to stay at home with her family instead, saying that her little sister Prim needed her around. Prim, who was now twenty-one, about to start medical school, and who was practically engaged to Gale's brother Rory already.

"I'm willing to put in the work to make things good again," he said, not wanting to go down without a fight. "I'll make a good husband. I'll make a good dad."

"I know," Katniss said, her eyes shining with tears. "You'll be the best."

"I make enough money now, and so do you. Our parents never had that when they got married."

She spoke the words so softly, Gale could barely hear them. "I know."

"Is there anyone else?" he dared to ask, bracing himself for the answer. There was that priest, or at least that guy who used to be in the seminary and then wasn't anymore, the guy who ran the soup kitchen Katniss liked to volunteer at. Peter something or other, his name was. Gale had seen the way the guy's eyes followed Katniss around whenever he thought she—or Gale—wasn't looking. Not that Katniss ever picked up on these things. After all these years, Katniss Everdeen still had no idea, the effect she had on people.

"No, of course not," Katniss answered immediately. "I would never do that to you. I would never do that to anyone."

Gale put his head in his hands. "What _are_ you doing, Katniss? What are you doing to us?"

"I'm saving us," she insisted. "We have to end this now before we ruin our friendship forever."

And by that time Gale knew it was a suicide mission, but if anything was going to change her mind, it was the truth. "I love you, Katniss."

Her silence said more than words ever could.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Bristel hauled him out of bed, no small feat as Gale was six foot four, nearly two hundred pounds, and had recently consumed what seemed like enough liquor to fill the Great Lakes. "Clean yourself up," he commanded. "You have a video call in fifteen minutes."

"A video call?" Gale repeated, feeling disoriented by the way he heard the words come out of his mouth a full second after he'd thought them in his head.

"Remember yesterday, when Thom said he ran into Professor Latier in Oslo and gave him your Skype info?" Thom was in Norway for three months on his company's dime, and he had been insufferable since first landing a week ago. If there was anything Gale and Bristel knew about Thom, it was that he was really, _really_ into blondes, and an all-expenses-paid trip to Scandinavia was their friend's idea of heaven. "Well, Latier rang you up an hour ago while you were in a Jägermeister coma. He's calling you back at four."

"It's not Jägermeister," Gale felt compelled to say. "It's this new Polish vodka. It's ninety-six percent alcohol."

"Do I fucking look like I care? Just take a shower, perform an exorcism, whatever it takes to get you presentable."

Twelve minutes, one shower, two naproxen, and thirty-two ounces of Gatorade later, Gale was seated at his desk, the blood in his veins pulsing to the synth pop beats of the Skype app's ringtone.

The face of the man who was once Gale's adviser filled the screen of his laptop. "Mr. Hawthorne." Dr. B.T. Latier grinned broadly. "I see Mr. Brenner has managed to bring you back from the dead."

It had been five years, but Latier's calm voice still sent chills down Gale's spine. Gale half-expected him to say that they'd found something wrong with Gale's transcript somehow, and that they were sending him back to engineering school.

Gale's face grew warm. "Professor Latier," he managed to say, trying not to go cross-eyed as he focused on the screen. "It's great to hear from you again. Thom said you were working in the private sector now."

Latier chuckled. "Did he tell you I went over to the dark side?"

"Well, yes," Gale hedged. "But I thought you told him to say that."

"I did, I did," Latier said, cleaning his glasses and putting them back on. "Are you still with Panem Industries?"

"Yes," Gale said, wiping his clammy hands on his jeans.

"Working on what?"

"Technologies for mining safety, mostly." His father had almost died in a cave-in when Gale was fourteen, and since then Gale had made it his personal crusade to improve working conditions in the mines. As much as he hated Panem Industries and as creepy as their CEO Coriolanus Snow was, his job put him on the right track to do just that. Eventually.

Katniss's dad had worked in the mines, too, and he'd been in the same accident. The long, onerous class action suit that followed was the entire reason Gale met Katniss in the first place.

Gale felt sick to his stomach, and not just from the Polish vodka. How could he function like a normal human being when everything in his life reminded him of Katniss?

Latier nodded thoughtfully as Gale described his projects and responsibilities at Panem, or at least the parts that he was allowed to talk about. "Do you have a non-compete clause in your contract?" the former professor asked.

"Just three months."

"Excellent. I can work with three months." Latier leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and smiled. "How would you like to come work with me?"

"With you?" Gale repeated.

"Yes. You're brilliant—that's a given—and I've always admired your work ethic, Hawthorne. This company I'm working for, sometimes I think it's got more money than sense, so I'm going to go ahead and surround myself with people I trust."

"Thank you, Professor," Gale said humbly.

"Our headquarters are in Stockholm. Lots of locals, lots of expats. It's a very dynamic, very multicultural environment—you'll like it a lot." Latier scribbled on a piece of paper and held it up for Gale to see. "This is what you're likely to get paid. I expect you'll like that a lot, too."

Holy shit, that was a lot of zeroes. "What currency is that in?"

"It's in Swedish kroner," Latier said. "It includes your rent and a small stipend for other expenses. Scandinavia is expensive, mind you, so all our expatriate employees get a cost-of-living allowance. If you have dependents—a partner, kids—it'll be adjusted upwards. Are you married? Engaged?"

_I could have been._ More thoughts of Katniss came bubbling to the surface, but Gale pushed them back down. "No, but would my parents and siblings count as dependents?"

"Unfortunately, no. Not unless you can demonstrate that your contributions are their main source of income."

Gale allowed himself a sheepish smile. "Oh, well, it was worth a shot."

"I know it's a lot to take in, but here's what we can do," Latier continued. "My boss will need to meet you anyway, and there's a conference in Iceland that we're attending next week. So how about you come up and meet us in Reykjavík, ask us any questions you might have? We'll pay for the flights, put you up at a hotel for three days—that's standard for all our prospective expats, and there are no strings attached."

Gale dragged a hand through his hair. This was happening too fast, too soon, and it all sounded too good to be true. But Professor Latier was vouching for him, and even if Gale didn't accept the offer—or get one in the first place—he still would have gotten a free trip to Iceland out of it. Hell, Gale could even take the money he'd been saving for marrying Katniss and spend it on a flight to Norway to visit Thom, see what all the fuss was about. He had another friend in Denmark, though Gale wasn't entirely sure that visiting Johanna Mason—Katniss's other best friend—was a good idea.

He twisted the ring on his finger, lost in thought.

"So what do you think, Hawthorne?" Latier wanted to know, bringing Gale back to the present. "Are you in or not?"

And if Gale _did_ end up taking the job, some distance from Katniss was just what he needed. Okay, so Sweden was probably overkill, and anyone who knew them would almost certainly think he was running away, but still...

Gale's face broke into a huge grin. He touched his left wrist, something he had a habit of doing each time he made a decision or a promise, though he could never really explain why.

"I'm in."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're liking it so far! Again, it's not necessary to have read [_Enthralled_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5660476/chapters/13037581) to follow along, but I would definitely recommend it. There will be lots of references and callbacks—for example, Annie's brother Rafe is Ulf from  _Enthralled_ (both names mean "wolf"). Grandpa Donner's Mjolnir pendant made its first appearance in _Enthralled_ , as well.
> 
> Vostead = _våd_ / _våt_ means "wet", and _sted_ / _stad_ means "place" or "town/city".
> 
>  **Medea Smyke** , captain of the Gadge ship, is responsible for imprinting me with male!Bristel. He's absolutely irresistible in [_An Extra Dividend_](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6886442/1/An-Extra-Dividend).
> 
> If these notes haven't bored you yet, there's even more nerdery on my [Tumblr](damndonnergirls.tumblr.com/tagged/previously-on-aty).  
> 


	2. Byrjun (Beginning)

Of all the things Peeta Mellark was planning to do that night, obsessively stalking a woman he had no right to even be looking at was not high up on his list. But there he was, parked down the street from Katniss Everdeen's house, his hands gripping the steering wheel of his secondhand Camry so tightly that his knuckles had turned white.

 _You're making a mountain out of a molehill_ , he told himself. _So she didn't turn up at the soup kitchen. Volunteers are allowed to do that. That's why they're called volunteers._

But Rue, another regular volunteer who worked with Katniss at the Department of Natural Resources, said she hadn't gone to work, either. Rue had texted her best friend Prim—Katniss's sister—only to receive a cryptic _She's not feeling well_ in reply.

A gentle voice interrupted his thoughts. "Peeta?"

He nearly jumped out of his skin. A beat-up old truck had slowed down to a stop beside his car, and the passenger window rolled down to reveal Primrose Everdeen herself, looking down at him with concern.

"Prim," he croaked. A furtive glance revealed that it was Rory Hawthorne, Gale's younger brother and doppelgänger, in the driver's seat. The thought of Katniss's intimidating alpha male boyfriend filled Peeta with even more guilt than before. "Rory."

"Are you coming over to see Katniss?" Prim asked, tugging on her blonde braid.

"Sort of," Peeta stammered. "She didn't come to the soup kitchen, and Rue said she didn't show up for work, so I thought—I thought maybe she was sick."

Prim exchanged worried glances with Rory before turning back to Peeta. "I guess you could say that."

"She broke up with Gale," Rory said bluntly.

Peeta froze.

"Rory!" Prim reprimanded him. "That's between Katniss and Gale."

Her boyfriend shrugged. "People are going to find out sooner or later. It might as well be sooner."

"I'm really sorry to hear that," Peeta said. And he was. Katniss and Gale had been having problems lately—any couple would, after eight years of dating—but, well, one look at them and anyone would know that they belonged together. They even looked a little alike, with their matching dark hair, gray eyes, and ridiculously perfect bone structure. Each time Peeta saw them, it was like a punch to the gut.

But now they weren't together, not anymore. Something like hope fluttered in his chest. Would he have a chance now? _Don't be a jerk, Mellark._ He couldn't make a move on her so soon. Besides, did he even know how to make a move on a girl anymore? He'd been good at it, once upon a time. But when he entered the seminary, he'd accepted that there were things in life—marriage, fatherhood—that just weren't meant for him. Even after dropping out last year, he didn't dare think that those things could be back on the table. Then he'd met Katniss and fallen hopelessly in love with her despite his better judgment, despite knowing she was with someone else. Someone who actually deserved her.

Besides, relationships like Katniss and Gale's didn't end just like that. There was too much history, too much baggage, for it to be a clean break.

"I'm sure they'll get back together eventually," Peeta added.

"I doubt it," Rory said. "Gale's running away to Europe. He's got a flight booked and everything."

"Rory!" Prim scolded him.

"It's true! He's leaving next week!"

Heart pounding at the implication—at the knowledge that Katniss was single, and that Gale was going to go far, far away very soon—Peeta retrieved the large paper bag that was sitting in his passenger seat. "I don't want to impose," he began anxiously, "but if you don't mind, could you give this to Katniss for me? It's probably not a good idea for me to visit, under the circumstances."

"Of course," Prim said, leaning out the window to accept the package. "Can I ask what's in it?"

"It's, um, lamb stew," Peeta told her. "There's some bread, too. Actually... you know what, don't tell her it was from me. There's enough for four people, so you can just serve it for dinner without saying anything."

A sweet smile lit up Prim's cornflower blue eyes. "I won't need to say anything. She loves everything you make; one taste and she'll know it's from you."

Peeta blushed. "Thanks." He was usually much more confident than this; he'd been student council president and captain of the wrestling team in high school. He'd even been able to talk his way around Father Athelstan, during his short-lived stint at the seminary. But there was something about the Everdeen sisters that left him either tongue-tied or blabbering like an idiot.

"I guess we'll see you around, Peeta," Prim said. "Thanks for the food."

The words came tumbling out of his mouth before he could put a stop to them. "Anything for Katniss."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

 

_Vostead, Washington_

 

It was like they were fourteen years old again, caught up in daydreams of romance, practicing for homecoming like they used to do.

"I love this song," Annie sighed, resting her chin on Madge's shoulder. They were in Madge's old room, slow dancing along to Mr. and Mrs. Undersee's wedding video. "Every time I hear it, I turn to mush. And after all these years, Roberta Flack's version is still the best by far."

 

_The first time ever I saw your face_

_I thought the sun rose in your eyes_

 

On the TV screen, a younger Eric and Mathilde Undersee held each other tenderly for the first time as a married couple: foreheads touching, his hand on the small of her back, their feet barely moving to the music.

Tears welled up in Madge's eyes, but she blinked them away. "How long are you staying in town?" she asked quietly.

"I have to go back to Reykjavík next week," Annie said regretfully. "That paper isn't going to write itself, and I need the university's computers to parse all that data."

 

_And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave_

_To the dark and the endless skies, my love_

 

"Oh," Madge said in a small voice.

"Come with me," Annie urged, giving her best friend a small squeeze. "You need a change of scenery. And you can't really beat Iceland for scenery."

"It would be nice," Madge admitted. "Aunt Maysilee gave me all that Viking stuff from Grandpa Donner... I've been reading what I can, but most of the books are in Old Norse. Someone from Iceland would be able to translate them."

"There you go."

"But I'm not sure I can afford to miss work for much longer," Madge said doubtfully.

"You work at a law firm that Seneca's dad runs. I'm sure they'll be okay with it."

 

_To the dark and the endless skies._

 

Seneca appeared in the doorway, rapping his knuckles lightly on the frame. "I heard my name." His expression softened at the sight of Madge and Annie in each other's arms. "May I cut in?"

Annie released Madge from her embrace and stepped back. "Of course. I needed to email my adviser anyway." She picked up her phone and laptop from Madge's bed. "I'll be in the living room."

The door clicked shut behind her.

 

_And the first time ever I kissed your mouth_

_I felt the earth move in my hand_

 

Seneca's arms were strong around Madge, and his scent was familiar and comforting. And even though they weren't engaged, even though they hadn't been together that long, Madge couldn't help wondering what it would be like to marry him. After all, he was a lot like her father had been at that age: an up-and-coming, ambitious lawyer, with an appetite for politics and grand ideas for the future.

A vision filled Madge's mind. A long, flowing dress; the tall, dark, handsome man she would call her husband. Rose petals, music, dancing.

 

_Like the trembling heart of a captive bird_

_That was there at my command, my love_

 

Another image: empty chairs at her wedding, where her mother and father should be sitting.

Madge looked back at the television, at the ghosts of her parents dancing across the screen. At that small, poignant memory preserved, crystallized in time. Eric and Mathilde's story was over and done before Madge's had even begun.

 

_That was there at my command, my love._

 

 _Happy thoughts,_ Madge chided herself. _Only think happy thoughts._

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried again.

 

_And the first time ever I laid with you_

_I felt your heart so close to mine_

 

A long, flowing dress.

The tall, dark, handsome man she would call her husband.

Rose petals, music, dancing.

Her husband, whispering in her ear. _Our story will never end,_ she could hear him say. _That is how much I love you._

 

_And I knew our joy would fill the earth_

_And last 'til the end of time, my love_

 

But it wasn't Seneca that she saw in her mind's eye; not his blue eyes that were gazing back down at her just then. No, it was a different man altogether, someone she had never even met before. Someone with the smell of the forest lingering on his skin. Someone whose features were clouded beyond recognition, save for the green and purple lights reflected in his silver eyes.

He was a stranger, but he knew her, _understood_ her, the way her father had understood her mother, the way Aunt Maysilee and Uncle Haymitch understood each other. The way that, all of a sudden, Madge knew in her heart Seneca—through no fault of his own—never could.

 

_And it would last 'til the end of time,_

_My love._

 

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

 

"Penny for your thoughts, m'lady," Seneca said softly, when the song was over.

Madge's face grew warm. "It's nothing," she hastened to say. "I was just thinking... about my parents. About this song."

Seneca smiled sadly at her. "It makes you think, doesn't it." The way he said the words made it sound like a statement, not a question. "How precious every moment is. How you should spend as much time as you can with the one you truly love. And... and if you haven't met him yet, how you should go out there, put yourself out there, so he can find you. So you can find him."

Madge stiffened. Could he read her mind? Did he know?

"I do love you," Seneca said, looking down at their intertwined hands. "But I haven't been a good friend to you. I haven't been entirely honest with you—or with myself. And I wanted to wait, wait until the worst of your grief had passed, but... I don't think I can live this lie any longer. Madge... please don't be angry with me for what I'm about to say."

And Madge _knew_. She knew what it was before he even said it. It was as if a veil had been lifted from her eyes, and she was finally able to see him clearly for the very first time. Every niggling doubt she had pushed aside in the past, because Seneca said he loved her and she wanted to believe him, every piece of the puzzle was now falling into place. She didn't know whether to laugh, because at least now she didn't have to break up with him, or to cry, because all this time she had thought she was smarter than that, and all this time she had been so very _wrong_.

She reached up and touched his face. "It's okay," she found herself saying. "I'm not angry. In fact, I... when the shock wears off, I'm sure I'll find that I'm actually... _happy_."

Relief flooded Seneca's chiseled features, and he gratefully pressed his lips to her hand before placing it over his heart.

"I've made up my mind," Madge told Annie later, after Seneca had left. "I'm going to Iceland with you."

"What happened?" Annie asked, sensing something had changed.

"You were right," Madge said simply. "Seneca is gay."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

 

_Minneapolis – St. Paul International Airport_

 

"Passport?" Hazelle Hawthorne asked.

Gale patted his jacket pocket. "Here."

"Tickets?"

"Yep."

"Phone?"

"Got it." Gale wrapped his arms around his mother and embraced her tightly. "I'll be fine, Ma. I'll call you the second I land."

"Okay." Hazelle put her hands on either side of Gale's head and pulled it down so she could kiss his forehead. "Be safe."

"Bring me back a drinking horn," Rory said, after the two brothers had performed an awkward dance ending in a half-hug. "Preferably stolen, for the full Viking experience."

"Rory," their mother said in disapproval.

"Bring me back a hot Icelandic boy," Posy, all of thirteen years old, piped up. "I hear there are lots."

Gale scowled even as he leaned down and gave his little sister a hug. "Absolutely not." He paused, and sniffed her hair. "That's weird. How come you smell like a baby again?"

Posy gave him a strange look. "You're just imagining things, Gale."

Eighteen-year-old Vick had his backpack on the floor and was frantically digging through it. Finally, he found what he was looking for, and held it up in triumph. "I got this for you."

"Thanks, Vick," Gale said, touched, as he accepted the battered, leather-bound book.

Vick pushed his glasses up his nose. "I found it at a secondhand store," he said, tapping the cover. _Sægeirrs saga_ , it said. "It's about a Viking who moves to the Iceland settlement from continental Europe. I thought it would be a nice thing to read on the plane." The youngest Hawthorne son was the biggest bookworm in the family.

Of course Gale was going to read it—eventually—but he didn't have the heart to tell Vick that he would most likely spend all his waking hours on the flight watching as many action films as he could find, preferably ones with as little plot as possible. The closest thing to a Viking history lesson that he was going to get was Marvel's _Thor_. Or maybe not; he doubted he could watch two hours of a petite brunette like Natalie Portman without thinking of Katniss.

Bristel had come to send him off, too, and unlike Rory he knew exactly what kind of hug he was going for: starting out as a firm handshake, then bringing their clasped hands to chest level while leaning forward and bumping shoulders. "Gotta admit, I'm jealous. You and Thom in Norway together—that'll be one for the ages. You guys always leave me behind."

"If I get the job, you can visit me in Sweden any time," Gale told him. "We'll have real adventures while Thom chases after blondes."

Bristel laughed. "I'll hold you to that."

Finally, Gale came to the end of the line: the last, but certainly not the least, person in his small army of well-wishers.

"Dad," he said, a lump suddenly forming in his throat. "I'll miss you guys. I wish I could bring you all with me."

Edward Hawthorne engulfed his eldest son in a bear hug. "Don't worry about us," he reassured him, ruffling Gale's hair as if he were a little boy again. "Don't let us hold you back."

"You're not holding me back," Gale protested.

Edward smiled. "If you say so."

And then they were all crowded around him, their arms around each other's shoulders for one last group hug before Gale disappeared into the terminal.

"We love you, Gale."

"Put photos on Facebook or Instagram or _something_."

"He doesn't have any of those things, Pose."

"I swear, Gale, you're so medieval."

"Remember, if they start getting hostile, say you're Canadian."

Edward stepped back and looked at his firstborn with a proud but wistful expression, as if he were seeing the boy Gale used to be, side by side with the man he had become. "We've always known you were special," he said, and Gale knew his father meant every word. "Now it's time for you to show the world."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Business class was _nice_.

Gale could stretch his legs out, for once. That was the number one most important thing for a guy his size. And with wider seats and armrests actually worth a damn, he didn't have to constantly worry about poking someone's eyes out with his elbows.

Plus, he had free WiFi. Not that he needed it—the idea of being completely off the grid for a while was very, very appealing—but if he had to, he could email Thom or get him on Skype, try to get an actual itinerary going for his visit.

Even without WiFi, the in-flight entertainment looked promising, and it was definitely the biggest screen Gale had ever seen stuck to the back of a plane seat. _Sorry, Vick_. _I'll read that book some other time._

The only drawback was that, as big as the seats were, they were still arranged side by side in standard rows, not at an angle to each other and walled off cubicle-style like the newer planes apparently had. All the leg room in the world wasn't going to make up for it, if he ended up sitting next to someone who made his life miserable for the better part of a day. He mentally crossed his fingers as he watched the plane fill up, cheering inwardly each time someone walked past his row.

Gale breathed a sigh of relief as the cabin door closed, the seat next to him still empty. _Privacy,_ he thought to himself. _Sweet, sweet leg room and privacy. I could get used to business class._

But his relief was short-lived, as a familiar-looking man who had bypassed Gale's row just moments ago backpedaled and stuffed his enormous hiking pack into the overhead compartment right above Gale.

To make matters worse, when the man finally slid into the seat next to Gale, he turned around and stuck his hand out in Gale's face. "How's it going?" the undeniably attractive and unflaggingly cheerful man said in a distinctive Australian accent. "Looks like we're going to be stuck together for a while. The name's—"

"Finnick Odair," Gale finished for him, accepting the handshake. "The pro surfer." Not to mention model, playboy, entrepreneur, and who knew what else. He wondered if he should get an autograph for Posy. He wondered if he should get an autograph for his mother. Quick, how did you take selfies again?

"Call me Finn." His grin grew even wider, if that were even possible, making his dimples deepen in his cheeks. It was almost enough to make Gale question his sexuality. "And you are?"

"Gale," he said. "Gale Hawthorne."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

After the initial starstruck feeling wore off five, maybe ten minutes later, Gale's eyes started to glaze over while Finn continued to chatter nonstop.

"Nice name, Hawthorne," Finn complimented him. "That's the name of the suburb where I grew up in Melbourne. It's the name of the footy club I support, too—the Hawthorn Hawks. We lost to Sydney in 2012, but last year we won the premiership, and this year I reckon we're the one to beat."

Finn took Gale's silence as an opportunity to launch into a long, detailed explanation of Australian rules football, which as far as Gale could tell was just rugby in a sleeveless shirt. But Gale played along, nodding whenever it seemed appropriate. In time, though, the smile pasted on his face started to slide off. _Oh god, make him stop._

"So, Iceland," Finn said, finally changing the subject. "Why Iceland?"

"I have a job interview," Gale responded, slightly surprised that he still had the power of speech. "I'm an engineer."

"Ah, a brainy one." Finn nodded sagely. "Never was good at maths myself. I dropped out of uni when I turned pro."

"And you?" Gale asked, despite himself. "Why are you going to Iceland?"

"My company"—Finn pointed at his shirt, which had the word AEGIR and a stylized drawing of a wave on it—"we're branching out into cold water surfing. It's a small market at the moment, but we're foreseeing heaps of growth. It's like the final frontier in surfing. Anyway, I just came from meetings with suppliers in Minneapolis, and we're doing a photo shoot with our new 6mm insulated wetsuits all around the Iceland coast. You should come along if you're free. Do you model?"

Gale was flattered. After getting brutally dumped by Katniss, it was nice to be noticed by someone who looked good for a living. "No, I should probably stick to engineering. But thanks."

"Give it a go. You won't know until you try."

The next thing Gale knew, Finn had pulled out his phone and started swiping through his photos. "Here's the first time I tried surfing in Iceland. Check out all that ice on the shore. And look—the sand is black, from the volcanic activity. Isn't that awesome?"

Gale had to admit the scenery was breathtaking. But when Finn accidentally swiped past his Iceland photos, Gale caught a glimpse of something even more intriguing. "Who's that?" he asked, stopping Finn mid-swipe to point out a dark-haired girl whose lovely face jumped out at him from the screen.

For once, Finn fell silent, running a hand through his shock of bronze hair in an almost bashful gesture. "A girl I met a few years ago," he answered, his face suddenly serious. "An American, like you. She was doing her master's degree in Queensland at the time. Marine biology."

"She must be pretty special, if you kept her photo all these years."

"I don't even know where she is now," Finn admitted. "She's not exactly easy to find. Probably just as well. She's wicked smart. At first, I never knew what to say to her. Still, I always wonder what could've been, you know? You ever feel that way about a girl?"

Gale let out a short laugh. "It's a long story."

Finn chuckled. "I think you can manage to fit it into six hours, yeah?"

"Maybe." As a rule, Gale didn't like to talk about relationships to anyone, much less a near stranger. But there was something about Finnick Odair that made Gale want to tell him his secrets.

Finn rang for a flight attendant. "I reckon this is the kind of story that needs to be shared over a beer."

A beer was just what Gale needed. "My sentiments exactly."

Finn grinned. "I have a feeling, Gale Hawthorne, that this is the start of a particularly epic friendship."


	3. Sammentræf (Encounter)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING: Contains references to drug use.**

_Copenhagen_

 

Johanna Mason fucking loved Denmark.

Of course, she could live without the extravagant prices for everything—she was paying nearly four dollars for a can of Coke, for chrissake—and the fact that her closest friends, like Katniss Everdeen, were a six-hour flight and several time zones away. But the architecture, the museums, _Fristaden Christiania_ , and the cycling culture more than made up for it.

Not to mention the clubs. _God_ , the clubs. As a neurochemist, Johanna knew perfectly well that music was like a drug, affecting the levels of dopamine, cortisol, serotonin, and oxytocin in the brain. But _experiencing_ it was a different matter entirely. That was why every Friday night, after hanging up her lab coat at the multinational pharmaceutical company where she worked to find the next big thing in antidepressants, she slipped into a sparkly top and leather pants, and hit the meatpacking district with Enobaria.

Johanna was there for the music: for the steady thump of the bass, the otherworldly strains of the synths that hit her right in the nucleus accumbens—the pleasure center of the brain—and sent delicious chills down her spine. She was there for the dancing, or what passed for dancing in a writhing mass of human flesh. The dance floor was a tangle of supple limbs and perfect bodies, a collective frenzy of hundreds of beautiful young things. A sea of humanity, individuals so different and diverse, local Danes as well as tourists and expatriates like Minneapolis-born Johanna and London-bred Enobaria. But under the pulsing lights that turned the entire room blood red, then pitch black, then blood red again, they were all the same. They were one. They were alive.

"Looks like someone fancies you," Enobaria shouted to her over the din.

"Male or female?" Johanna shouted back. She was fine either way.

"Male."

"Hot or not?"

Enobaria grinned deviously. "Red hot."

Johanna followed Enobaria's gaze to the bar, and found herself staring at an impossibly handsome man with the long, lithe body of an underwear model. And even though there were hundreds of other people there, she knew he was staring right back at her, and the knowledge sent waves of arousal straight into her clit.

"What's your name?" he breathed into her ear in lightly Danish-accented English, later when he had her pressed up against her apartment door. They had barely lasted ten minutes on the dance floor. They'd started making out two, maybe three minutes in, their tongues slipping and sliding inside each other's mouths. Ten minutes and Johanna had taken his hands and put them on her breasts underneath her top as she ground her ass into his groin. Johanna had always been sexually aggressive; she had constantly scandalized Katniss in all the years they shared a dorm room in college. But she had never done _that_ in a club before.

And Johanna always, _always_ gave her hookups a fake name, but this time she was so overcome with desire that she forgot everything except the truth. "Johanna," she gasped, her fingers buried in his thick red hair.

_Johanna Mason fucking loved Denmark._

"Johanna," he murmured against her throat as he hiked her leg up onto his hip. "I'm Darius."

As they stumbled into the apartment, she wondered why he had bothered to tell her his name. But she didn't have to wonder for long, because soon enough she was screaming it again and again: on the floor, in her bed, in the shower.

Johanna Mason fucking loved Denmark, and Denmark loved fucking Johanna Mason.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

The sex had been so mind-blowing that when Johanna woke up alone the next morning, she wondered whether she had hallucinated the entire thing. She hadn't touched psilocybin or anything remotely like that in a long, _long_ time, but in the cold light of day she had to admit that the kind of sex she'd just had—or thought she'd had—was some shamanic shit. Sex like _that_ was something that only happened once, possibly twice a millennium, obviously never to the same person.

Johanna slid out of bed and padded to the bathroom. He wasn't there. She wandered into the kitchen. No, not there either.

She had almost convinced herself that Darius had been a figment of her imagination when he walked through the door, balancing a paper bag and two cups of coffee in his muscular arms.

"Good morning to you, too," he said, his eyes appreciatively taking in her naked body.

"Jesus," she hissed. She grabbed a dish towel to try and cover herself, but failed pitifully. Not that she had anything against nudity; quite the opposite, in fact. But the sight of Darius made her feel vulnerable, all of a sudden.

He raised his eyebrows in amusement. "It's nothing I haven't seen before." _Or touched, or licked up and down,_ Johanna thought, but Darius wisely held his tongue for now.

"Why did you come back?" she wanted to know. All her other one-night stands had known the drill.

Darius took it in stride, setting his purchases down on the kitchen table. "I didn't know what you liked," he said, taking out several pieces of pretzel-shaped pastries out of the paper bag. "So I bought a few different kinds of _kringle_. And I got you a black coffee and a latte; I'll take whatever you don't want."

"Um, I'll have the black coffee," Johanna said uncertainly. "And, uh... thank you?"

Darius chuckled. "Maybe we should start over." He held his hand out to her. "Hello, my name is Darius. Darius Johansen."

"You've got to be kidding me." Not to think way, _way_ too far into the extremely hypothetical future, but if she married this dude and took his name, she would literally be Jo McJo. Even if she didn't take his name, Katniss would never let her hear the end of it.

"No, I'm perfectly serious," he grinned. "We had sex, let's see... three times last night, plus a fourth time earlier this morning. Yes, we used condoms each time, and yes, we established that neither of us have any diseases."

Johanna's mind alternated between utterly blank and utterly confused as she accepted his handshake. "Hello, I'm... Johanna. Johanna Mason." _Great, now he knows your real last name, too. Dammit, get your shit together, Jo._

"Nice to meet you again, Johanna," he replied. "Don't worry, I'm not a serial killer."

"Sounds like something a serial killer would say," she retorted.

Darius laughed. "Well, I'm not. In actual fact, I'm a productive member of society and gainfully employed as a linguist."

Johanna was tempted to say two things. First of all, that productive members of society could turn out to be serial killers, too.

And, second of all, _you bet your tight Danish ass you're a linguist_.

Johanna shook her head free of the memory of his tongue _on_ her and then _inside_ her. He'd been so _good_.

His eyes twinkled when he smiled, and Johanna realized with a start that they were mismatched. It had been too dark to notice last night, but now she could see that his left eye was green, and his right eye was hazel. Heterochromia iridium. Johanna had never seen it up close before. She'd certainly never slept with anyone who had it.

"An actual linguist, I mean," Darius clarified cheekily, raking a hand through his ginger hair. "You know, languages, translation, that sort of thing. If you don't believe me, I can give you references."

Now, redheads, she had slept with a lot of those. But no one, redhead or not, ever made her feel the way Darius did last night or this morning, the way he made her feel _now_ just by looking at her. She'd never orgasmed so much before, not even with the man she once thought was the love of her life. Not even with Rafe Cresta.

 _Fuck_.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

 

_Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean_

 

"What's taking so long?" Annie grumbled as she jabbed at the flight attendant call button. "I asked for coffee fifteen minutes ago."

Madge lifted her eyes from the books she had spread out across her meal tray. "That's weird. They were pretty responsive earlier."

Annie drummed her fingertips on the armrest and exhaled impatiently. "I'm going over there to get it myself. Want anything from the galley?"

"Um, some fruit would be nice," Madge answered distractedly. She selected a book and opened it to a random chapter. "Thanks."

 

 

> _It was the merchant Bjarni Herjólfrsson, or so the Viking sagas say, who was the first European to lay eyes on the Americas._
> 
> _One summer Bjarni set sail for Greenland to visit his parents, who had gone with Erik the Red to establish a colony there. But winds and rain battered his ship and blew it off course until Bjarni found himself in the waters of a strange and foreign land, densely forested and mountainous. Though the land seemed rich and the climate hospitable, Bjarni ignored the pleas of his crew to explore it, and did not rest until he was reunited with his family._
> 
> _In Greenland, Bjarni told many a man about his adventure, but none took interest except for Erik's son Leif. Leif bought the merchant's ship, and steered it in the direction whence Bjarni had come. Leif and his men found the place the merchant had described, and called it Vinland. There they stayed for the winter, returning to Greenland in the spring._
> 
> _Leif traveled to Vinland once more in the year that followed, before living out the rest of his days in Greenland. Others journeyed west in his stead, seeking food, furs, and timber._
> 
> _After those pioneering voyages, however, the skalds fell silent on the fate of the Norse in Vinland. Today, all that remain are echoes of the turf houses they had built, the smithy in which they had hoped to forge a new life in the image of their homeland. And thus did_ _the people of the Americas find respite from the Europeans. A respite that would come to a bitter end nearly five hundred years later, when Cristoforo Colombo of Italy sailed forth in the name of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain._

 

Annie reappeared a few minutes later. "Sorry, no strawberries," she teased Madge as she handed her an apple.

"Thanks," Madge said, accepting the apple and biting into it. "So was the call button broken or something?"

Annie rolled her eyes. "There was no one in the galley. All the flight attendants were fawning over someone in business class. I think it was a celebrity, but I didn't see who."

"Wouldn't we have noticed if there was someone famous at the airport?"

"Eh." Annie shrugged. "Could've boarded at MSP."

After five years of flying all over the world for her research, Annie had a habit of assuming that everyone knew the codes of all the airports and airlines in existence. It took Madge a few seconds to register what MSP meant: Minneapolis – St. Paul, where the plane had briefly landed to pick up more passengers. They hadn't needed to disembark, so Madge had barely noticed the stopover.

Madge watched Annie tear open a packet of Splenda and dump the contents into her coffee. "When did you start using artificial sweeteners?" she asked in surprise.

"I didn't," Annie replied. "They were out of sugar cubes."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

"Here you go, Mr. Odair," the blonde flight attendant gushed. "I found another pack of sugar cubes for you."

"You are the absolute sweetest," Finn drawled, flashing his trademark million-watt smile. His eyes flickered briefly at her name tag before he looked back up and winked at her flirtatiously. "Angelika. You're an angel, Angelika. What would I do without you?"

Gale waited until Angelika and her small horde of flight attendants were out of earshot before he snorted. "Man, you lay it on thick."

"Nothing wrong with being appreciative," Finn declared. "You're just jealous of my charm."

"Well, your charm didn't seem to work on that Annie girl you're so hung up over," Gale pointed out. Maybe he was buzzed from the beer, or maybe he'd gone slightly insane since Katniss broke up with him last week, but in the past hour or so he had started to think of Finnick Odair as a longtime friend—practically a blood brother—instead of a famous person who just happened to sit next to him on a plane.

Finn lifted an eyebrow. "So that's how it is? We're taking cheap shots at each other now?" He popped a sugar cube into his mouth and smirked. "You may have lost your girlfriend to a fucking _priest_ , mate."

Gale let out a low whistle. "Too soon, Finn, too soon."

"You started it," Finn grinned. "You know what I reckon, though? This is destiny knocking on your door. I mean, your girlfriend of eight years breaks up with you, and the next day your old professor's calling about a job in Europe. If that's not a sign, I don't know what is."

Destiny. What a joke. Up until a week ago, Gale had thought Katniss was his destiny. He tipped his head back and emptied the last dregs of beer from the can into his mouth.

"Who knows? You might meet your real one true love on this trip," Finn speculated. "She might even be on this plane right now. For all we know, it's Angelika."

Gale grimaced. "I'm more into brunettes, myself."

"I thought I had a type, too. But true love had other ideas."

"Did you know right away?" Gale asked. "Was it love at first sight with Annie?"

Finn contemplated the question for a while, rubbing the surface of the silver bracelet on his left wrist as he did. "No," he said at last. "She crept up on me."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

After another hour, Finn's sugar buzz wore off, and the Australian pulled a sleep mask over his eyes. "Wake me up when we're in Reykjavík," he instructed Gale, yawning as he adjusted the flaps on either side of his head rest. "Like, literally shake me. I swear I can sleep through the apocalypse. Or, more appropriately since we're going to Iceland, Ragnarök."

 _Ragnarök_.

Gale found himself retrieving his backpack and pulling out the book Vick had bought for him. Vick had inherited his love of lore from their father, who used to tuck them in at night with Ojibwe folk tales, Aesop's fables, the Arabian Nights. Stories about the gods of ancient Greece and Rome, even the gods of the Norse. 

Their father's favorite Norse god was Thor: the defender of the common people, the god of thunder. _The Northmen called him Thor, but to the Saxons he was Thunor, and other tribes knew him as Donar. Donner is German for thunder._ For some reason his dad had mentioned that, and for some reason Gale still knew it by heart twenty years later.

Ragnarök was supposed to be a scary story, among other things a cautionary tale about lying and going back on one's word, but what Gale remembered most was the way Thor and Midgard's serpent defeated each other. "Thor killed the snake with his strength," he had gleefully told Thom and Bristel when they were seven years old. "And the snake killed Thor with his bad breath." The three of them had dissolved into fits of laughter.

He thumbed through the well-worn book, admiring the vintage look of the cover. He held it up to his face and breathed in, expecting nothing but the smell of paper, ink, and leather; the familiar odor of the well-stocked shelves they had at home. Edward Hawthorne had never been a rich man, but he prized his books above most of his other material possessions.

But all Gale could smell from this volume in particular was that sweet, faintly milky scent he had caught a whiff of earlier, when he was hugging Posy. Why would an old book smell like babies? For that matter, why would any book smell like babies?

 _You're just imagining things, Gale._ Posy had said it then, and she would say it again now, if she were there with him.

Gale flipped to the first page. _This is the story of Sægeirr Silvertongue, firstborn son of Finnbjorn and his beloved wife Anlaug, twin brother of Unna Ravenhair._

He glanced at his new friend, fast asleep in his seat. _Wait until Finn gets a load of this._ By some twist of fate, Gale's brother had given him a book about some Viking whose parents were almost literally named Finn and Annie. _If that's not a sign, I don't know what is._

Gale turned back to the book and started reading.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

" _There's nothing to be afraid of, son," Edward said to the little boy who hid his face in his father's shirt._

" _But the thunder is so loud," young Gale whispered, sniffling. "And lightning can destroy things."_

_Edward stroked the riotous mass of dark hair on his son's head. "What is thunder? It is the rage of Thor as he battles the frost giants and the trolls." He spoke gravely, ominously, in the voice he reserved for bedtime stories. "What is lightning? It is Thor's hammer Mjolnir, flying across the sky."_

_Gale nodded, trying to put on a brave face to make his father proud._

_His father smiled and tapped his finger on Gale's chest, right over his heart. "You were born on a night like this," Edward told him, as if he were sharing the secrets of the universe. "That's why we named you Gale: after the winds, after the storm. You have no reason to fear the thunder or the lightning. You are strongest in a thunderstorm."_

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Finn hadn't been joking. He slept like the dead. He slept through a heart-stopping five minutes of the worst turbulence through a freak thunderstorm that Gale had ever experienced in his life. Gale was just about to slap him awake when Finn finally lifted the sleep mask from his eyes and stretched out his tanned arms. "Are we there yet?" he mumbled groggily.

"Dude, surfers are supposed to be good at waking up," Gale groused. "Isn't that your whole shtick? Getting to the beach and catching the waves before everyone else?"

"I'm a frequent flyer, for fuck's sake." Finn yawned, scratching the side of his face where his five o'clock shadow had doubled overnight. "If I didn't sleep on planes, I'd never sleep at all."

The flight attendants went even crazier over Finn's bedhead, unshaven appearance, and sleepy baby eyes. "You poor thing," Angelika cooed. "Hope you have sweet dreams soon."

"You bet I will, angel," Finn said, giving the blonde a drowsy, lazy smile.

Finn turned to Gale as they walked off the plane and into Keflavík International Airport. "I've got a chauffeur waiting for me," he told Gale, pulling a navy blue knit hat over his trademark bronze red hair as he slowly regained his mental acuity. "Where're you staying?"

"The Radisson 1919," Gale answered. He hoped the company would stay this generous even after they hired him, if they hired him at all.

"Cool, same," Finn replied. "You can just ride with me."

When they arrived at the baggage carousel, it didn't take long before some passengers from economy class recognized Finn and began to whisper among themselves. It made Gale uncomfortable, but Finn didn't seem to mind, signing autographs and even posing for photos with a couple of teenage girls.

After about ten minutes of standing around and anxiously twisting the silver ring on his finger, Gale spotted the familiar gray of his suitcase at the far end of the baggage carousel. Unable to wait any longer, he sprinted to where it was trundling along on the conveyor belt.

It wasn't until he reached for the suitcase that he realized it wasn't his. It was the exact same size, color, brand, and style, but this one had a name embroidered across the front. Gale's heart leaped into his throat at the familiar word. _Donner is German for thunder._

His hand brushed against pale, slender fingers. It was like being struck by lightning. "Sorry," he rasped, jerking his hand back.

"It's all right," a quiet voice said. A female voice. An American voice.

Gale turned his head, barely able to breathe. The bright lights of the airport glinted off a silver pendant, shaped like an upside-down cross or letter T, at the base of a creamy throat.

_Thor's hammer Mjolnir, flying across the sky._

Gale slowly lifted his gaze, committing every feature to memory as they were revealed to him. Soft, pink lips, moist and dewy and slightly parted. Sapphire blue, almost indigo eyes. Tousled blonde hair flowing over her shoulders like a river of gold.

He had never, ever seen anyone so achingly beautiful. But, at the same time, he felt as if he had been gazing at her his entire life, seeing his soul reflected in the endless depths of her eyes.

From behind him, Gale heard Finn's voice, dazed and astonished. "Annie?"

And from behind the young woman with the blue eyes, Gale saw another lovely face, one he recognized from Finn's photos. Annie's expressive green eyes widened as she whispered, "Finn?"

The four of them stood there, rooted to the spot, until Gale remembered his manners and quickly helped the blonde with the suitcase he'd thought was his. "I, uh, guess our friends know each other," he managed to say.

She glanced up into his eyes again, and quickly averted her gaze. "Yeah, I guess they do."

"My name is Gale." _After the winds, after the storm._

She smiled shyly, making Gale's chest bloom with warmth. _You have no reason to fear the thunder or the lightning._

Her hand flew up to touch the Mjolnir pendant resting on her collarbone. "My name is Madge."

_You are strongest in a thunderstorm._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Fristaden Christiania_ or Freetown Christiania is an autonomous city-within-a-city (kind of like a commune) in Copenhagen. It is known for (among other things) cannabis.


	4. Drøm (Dream)

 

_Oslo_

 

"Hello? Hello—Gale? Is that you? Can you hear me?"

Thom Devereux plugged his finger into the ear that wasn't pressed against his phone, trying to make sense of the racket that was coming from the other end. He had called Gale Hawthorne, one of his oldest and closest friends in the world, immediately after getting Gale's text about arriving safely in Reykjavík. Even though Gale was technically a thousand miles away from the apartment where Thom was staying with two work friends in Oslo, it was still a vast improvement from last week, when Gale was _four_ thousand miles away back in the Twin Cities.

"Yeah, I can hear you," Gale shouted. "It's just—my friend is kind of going nuts right now—hell's _teeth_ , Finn!"

Another voice replaced Gale's on the line. "Oi, Thom," it boomed. "It is Thom, right?"

"Uh, yeah," Thom said, temporarily disoriented by the stranger's accent—why was Gale traveling with an Australian?—and by the sound of his front door unlocking. His roommates, most likely, back from their weekend market run. Thom could've sworn they'd come home ten minutes ago.

"Do you believe in fate, Thom?" the stranger wanted to know.

Delly Cartwright popped her head into Thom's room. "Lakshmi's making a curry," she informed him as she twisted her long, chestnut brown hair into a messy bun. The apartment belonged to Delly, or rather to her parents: a consultant who had, for many years, worked in the British foreign service; and his Norwegian wife whose family owned a successful line of shoes. "Can you help me make the samosas?"

Thom gave her a thumbs up. "I'll be there in a minute."

But the Aussie on the phone wasn't done with him yet. "Destiny? Soulmates?" he prodded. "Do you think there's someone out there who's meant for you?"

"Yeah, I do," Thom admitted. "I actually do."

When Thom was eighteen years old, he'd had the most intense, vivid dream of his life about a girl. It had shaken him to the core. But, as most dreams go, he'd promptly forgotten everything about her—what she looked like, what she sounded like—two seconds after waking up. Well, almost everything: he'd managed to hold on to a fleeting memory of kissing soft, _soft_ skin, of running his hands through silky golden hair. Of the feeling that she was the girl he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, and that he couldn't possibly settle for anyone else.

Since then, Thom had dated blondes exclusively, earning a bit of a reputation for himself in the process. Not that he cared what other people thought. Everyone, even Gale and their friend Bristel, could make fun of him all they wanted, but Thom was convinced that the girl in his dreams was the girl _of_ his dreams. If fixating on hair color helped narrow down the field, then so be it.

The stranger on the phone crowed in triumph, interrupting his reverie. "I like you, Thom," he informed him. "You and I, we're going to get along just fine."

There was a scuffle. "Sorry about that," Gale apologized, slightly out of breath from wrestling his phone back.

"Who was that guy?"

"Finnick Odair."

Thom couldn't believe his ears. "Finnick O _dair_? The pro surfer? _The_ Finnick Odair?"

"The one and only," Gale confirmed. "We sat next to each other on the plane and got to talking."

"He's dated more Victoria's Secret models than Adam Levine!"

Thom could practically hear Gale grimace. "Really?"

Gale had inherited most of his musical tastes from his dad; just one of the many manifestations of his hero worship. As a rule, he automatically distrusted every musician who arrived on the scene after 1999. Didn't matter that in 1999, Gale, Thom, and Bristel were snotty twelve-year-olds who thought they were hardcore just because they had managed to learn Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" on guitar.

"Remember when we were watching the fashion show on TV last December?" Thom reminded him. "Finnick Odair was in the audience. I think he was even interviewed for a bit."

"Huh. I forgot about that."

"Why was he rambling about soulmates?"

"It's a long story," Gale told him. "I—hold on, Thom." His voice became muffled, as if he had his hand over the phone. "Hey Finn, are we leaving now?" 

After a few seconds, the sound went back to normal. "I'll tell you all about it soon," Gale promised. "If not tonight, then whatever time I wake up after the jet lag hits."

"Sure, no problem," Thom said. "I'm going out with this girl tomorrow, though, so if I don't pick up you can assume things are going well."

"Another blonde?"

"Uh huh." Thom grinned. Norway was good to him. He wondered if he could turn his three-month stay into a more permanent assignment, like what Professor Latier was probably going to give Gale in Sweden.

" _Thomas_!" Delly shouted from the kitchen. "These potatoes aren't going to peel themselves!"

Delly Cartwright was usually the friendliest, most cheerful person in the world, but she could also be absolutely terrifying when she wanted to be. "I'm coming!" he yelled.

Gale laughed. "Your roommate's already got you wrapped around her finger. Why aren't you going out with her? Make an exception, date a brunette for once."

"Dell?" Now it was Thom's turn to make a face. "We're just buddies."

Not that Delly wasn't a gorgeous, amazing person—she _was_ —but she wasn't his destiny. Why would Thom waste her time and his? The girl of his dreams was out there somewhere, he just knew it. Thom was going to find her or die trying.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

 

_Keflavík International Airport_

_Reykjavík_

 

When Madge and Annie reemerged from the ladies' room at the arrivals hall, the beautiful man with the gray eyes ( _Gale_ , Madge reminded herself, _his name is Gale_ ) was still there, talking into his phone while the famous Finnick Odair bounced up and down beside him like an excitable puppy, pulling his knit hat lower down on his face as if to hide his dimpled smile and flushed cheeks.

So she hadn't imagined it after all.

"Finnick's really happy to see you," Madge whispered to Annie. "Maybe you were wrong about him. Maybe he _was_ serious."

Annie covered her face with her hands and made a soft whimpering noise. "I spend years hiding from him, and we end up on the same flight to freaking _Iceland_. What are the odds?"

Madge knew all about Finnick Odair. Or, at least, everything that she needed to know about him as far as her best friend was concerned. Annie had met Finnick while she was doing her master's degree in Australia. That was around the same time that Finnick was starting his own company, after spending his early career endorsing the bigger, more established surf brands. They met at a coastal cleanup event: Finnick with his athlete friends, and Annie with her research team.

"I thought it was going to be like _Revenge of the Nerds_ ," Annie had joked over Skype, when she told Madge about that first encounter. "But the jocks were nice and laid back, and really passionate about the environment."

One thing that had unnerved Annie about Finnick, however, was the way that he schmoozed with VIPs and potential investors.

"He flirted with anyone and everyone," Annie had recounted. "And people just ate it up. They threw money at him left and right. As an academic, I respect his ability to get funding. No one else can get sponsors like he does. But it was hard to tell when the schmoozing ended and genuine human interaction began. Every time he talked to me, I had to stop and think: was he actually interested in what I had to say? Or was he just networking as usual? It made for a lot of awkward silences."

Madge had been an entire hemisphere away at the time, but as far as she could tell Finnick actually _was_ interested, not just in what Annie had to say, but also in Annie herself. Finnick was constantly traveling for competitions and other commitments, but he would fly in at least once a month and inevitably run into Annie under increasingly implausible circumstances.

"I'm calling it," Madge had declared as early as the second month. "He likes you. He's wearing you down until you like him back."

Annie had scoffed at the idea. "Please. Every time I go to the supermarket, I see his ugly mug on the cover of some tabloid, and it's with a different model or actress or heiress each time. Besides, even if he did like me, long-distance relationships never last. Rafe and Jo couldn't make it work. Who am I to think that Finn and I can?"

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

"So what are your plans for the next few days?" Finn asked, when the four of them were piled into the van that picked him up from the airport. It was a tight squeeze, what with Gale and Madge's nearly identical suitcases, Finn and Annie's hiking packs, a crate of wetsuits, and four surfboards. But they all managed to squeeze in, with Finn in the front seat and Annie, Madge, and Gale in the back.

"Work," Annie answered, a little too quickly in Gale's opinion. She was a Ph.D. student doing marine biology research at the University of Iceland, and her apartment just happened to be a short drive from the hotel where Finn and Gale were staying. "Meetings with my adviser, crunching numbers, that sort of thing. I'm basically chaining myself to a computer for the next few days."

"Surely you have _some_ time to entertain your lovely friend," Finn responded easily. From the look on Annie's face, Gale knew Finn had called her bluff. "Or are you fine with me and Gale showing Madge around without you?"

"I don't mind exploring on my own," Madge hastened to say. "Most of the places I want to visit are only open during the day anyway, while Annie is at the lab."

"Madge has books that need to be translated from Old Norse," Annie told them. "I was going to introduce her to some of the linguists and medieval scholars at the university."

"That sounds cool," Gale said, impressed. "My dad and my brother are really into that kind of thing. Vick even gave me one of the sagas to read on the flight."

"Really?" Madge had been friendly, if a little reserved, but she perked up at the mention of the sagas. "Whose saga is it? Njál's? Egil's?"

Gale pulled the book out of his jacket. "Uh, some guy named Sægeirr."

"I've never heard of that one before," Madge remarked. "Can I see?"

There was another jolt of static electricity when their fingertips touched, and before Gale could stop himself he was wondering what it would feel like to kiss those pale pink lips. At this rate, he was going to spontaneously combust before he even got tongue.

"This is beautiful," Madge breathed, touching the leather cover reverently. "Wow." She opened the book and inhaled deeply before looking up at him, embarrassed. "Sorry, I just love the smell of old books."

Gale suddenly recalled the baby smell from earlier, and leaned in closer to sniff the book again. "Weird," he said. "It smelled different on the plane." Now all he could smell, besides worn leather and brittle paper, was a faint scent of green tea and citrus.

Annie was watching him like a hawk. "That's Madge you're smelling," she said pointedly. "Madge and the perfume her ex-boyfriend gave her."

Madge blinked, and glanced down at Gale's book. "Oh, look," she said in a neutral tone. "Sægeirr's parents were named Finn and Annie."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Annie was even more beautiful than Finn remembered: all luminous skin and wide eyes, masses of dark hair that made her look like a mermaid who had lost her tail and was stumbling onto land for the first time.

Seeing her at the airport, finding out she'd been on the same flight the whole time... it had nearly given him a heart attack. He saw his opening and dove in without a second thought, eager to pick up from where they left off, naïvely thinking they would fall straight into each other's arms because surely that was what people did in the face of so much _destiny_.

But they didn't fall into each other's arms. Annie was distant and cold, and she looked like she didn't want to be caught dead with him. It was only because of her friend Madge that she let Finn give them a ride home.

Speaking of Madge, it was clear to anyone who had eyes that Gale had become smitten with her on the spot. But every time Gale so much as looked at her, Annie was there, trying to stare him down. Even after Madge gave her cheek about the characters in Gale's Viking book—another incredible coincidence, and Finn made a mental note to borrow it the next chance he got—Annie sat there and silently radiated disapproval.

"Can you tell me what this is about?" Finn asked quietly, pulling Annie into the kitchen of her flat. He wanted to talk to her, and Gale could use some time alone with Madge, without Annie breathing down his neck.

"What do you mean?" Annie folded her arms across her chest.

"You're acting like you can't wait to get rid of me. Like we never... like we were never friends. You're being rude to Gale, too. He's just being nice to Madge."

At this, Annie's expression softened. "I'm sorry about that." She sounded genuinely remorseful. "I'll apologize to Gale. It's just..."

"Yes?"

"Madge is very vulnerable right now," Annie said in a low but fierce voice. "Her parents were murdered two weeks ago. In a school shooting."

Finn sucked his breath in sharply. "Shit," he said. "That's fucked up."

"She also recently broke up with her boyfriend," Annie continued. "That's why I brought her to Iceland. To take her mind off all of that. The last thing she needs is to fall in love with some pretty boy who's just going to break her heart when she..." At this, she faltered, her chin quivering slightly. She took a deep breath and looked at him defiantly. "When she realizes she can't keep him."

As bitter as Annie sounded, her words gave Finn hope. Did she mean what he thought she meant? "You could have kept me, Annie," he said, swallowing hard. "You know how I felt about you. How I _still_ feel about you. _You_ were the one disappeared on _me_."

"I graduated," Annie reminded him. "I graduated and I went home. It wasn't my fault you were in Hawaii at the time."

"That was the Billabong Masters. You know I couldn't miss that." Finn pulled at the hair on the back of his head, making it stick out awkwardly. "And you said—"

"I didn't ask you to miss it. I didn't ask you to do anything." Her green eyes shone. "And I'm never going to ask you to do anything, ever, because I know I'll only be disappointed."

"Disappointed?" Finn echoed in disbelief. "You were the one who stopped answering my emails."

"It was a student email address. I lost access after I graduated."

"You never gave me a different address. And you're never on Facebook."

"Facebook is stupid." Annie blew a strand of hair out of her face.

Finn exhaled, his shoulders sagging. "Can we just start over?" he asked despondently. "You, me, and a clean slate. You might not want me—not in the way I want you to—but I still want to be your friend. I don't want to lose you again."

Finn waited for what seemed like an eternity before Annie nodded her head. "Okay," she whispered. "Let's be friends."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Madge didn't actually need any help with her luggage. But Finn and Annie were having some sort of long-lost lovers' quarrel in the kitchen, and Gale didn't want to be anywhere near _that_. So he hung out with Madge in Annie's room while she unpacked.

"I take it you and Annie have been good friends for a long time," Gale said, mainly to distract himself from staring too much whenever Madge bent over to get something from her suitcase.

"Ages," Madge replied. She was tall and long-legged—about five foot nine, if not five foot ten—and _damn_ she looked good in skinny jeans. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, you were kind of sassing her a little," Gale teased her. "Back in the van."

Madge straightened up and regarded him with mock seriousness. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she deadpanned.

Gale chuckled. "Don't pretend you didn't do it on purpose. I recognize passive aggressive when I see it. Back where I come from, that's all part of being 'Minnesota nice'."

"Annie knows I love her, and I know this is just her way of protecting me," Madge said. "Wait, you're from Minnesota? I know a few people from there." She rattled off a few names, but Gale shook his head at each one.

"No, sorry," he said. "They don't ring a bell."

Madge tried again. "How about Johanna Mason?"

Gale's jaw dropped. "How do you know Johanna Mason?"

"She went out with Annie's brother a few years ago," Madge said. "They were pretty serious for a while."

"You're kidding." As far as Gale knew, Jo had been in exactly one serious relationship her entire life. "Annie's brother is—" He frowned, trying to remember. "Raphael?"

"Rafe," Madge said with a smile. "Close enough."

"I knew it was one of the Ninja Turtles," Gale quipped.

Madge laughed. Gale liked hearing her laugh. He liked it a lot.

"Don't you laugh at my Ninja Turtles," Gale said, pretending to be offended.

"I love the Ninja Turtles," Madge told him. "Raphael was my favorite."

"Mine, too. He was badass. A rebel. Didn't play by the rules."

"Yeah." Madge twisted a strand of blonde hair between her fingers, suddenly looking pensive. "It's a small world, isn't it? Finn and Annie meeting again after all this time, and in Iceland of all places. You knowing Jo. How do you know her, by the way?"

"She's, ah, a good friend of my ex." For the first time since meeting Madge, thoughts of Katniss filled Gale's mind, and it made him feel strangely guilty. Even though _she_ was the one who broke up with _him_ , and in any case it had been an entire week since then, for some reason Gale felt as if he were cheating on her just by being attracted to Madge. Besides, how would he feel if that priest guy, or anyone else for that matter, moved in on Katniss so soon after their eight-year relationship imploded?

"Jo works in Denmark now," Gale told Madge, just to have something to say. "In Copenhagen."

"She is?" Madge looked intrigued.

"Yeah. I was thinking of visiting her. And one of my best friends is in Oslo right now—I'm definitely going to visit him." Then, throwing all his guilt out the window, he said recklessly: "Want to come along? It won't cost much if we fly with a budget airline."

Miraculously, Madge seemed to be considering it. "It's definitely interesting," she said slowly. "I've never been to those places before, and if I'm learning about Vikings I might as well travel to the rest of the Nordic countries."

"I agree," Gale said, his heart hammering in his chest. "You should."

Madge narrowed her eyes at him. "How do I know you're not, like, a sex offender or something?"

"I'm insulted, Madge. Raping and pillaging is _so_ ninth century."

Madge laughed again. Gale could get used to that sound.

"Let's do it," Madge said resolutely, her eyes flashing blue fire. "Let's go."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fanon catchphrase "hell's teeth" comes from **Medea Smyke**.
> 
> The [FFN version of this chapter](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10763909/4/A-Thousand-Years) has an additional section about Scandinavian folklore. I wasn't satisfied with it, so I've taken it out. I plan to rework it into a future chapter.
> 
> At this point I'd like to shamelessly plug ["Requiem"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6445162), a Viking!Thelly one-shot which serves as an origin story of sorts for Thom.


	5. Rún (Rune, Mystery)

_St. Paul, Minnesota_

 

The muscles in her shoulders and upper back screamed at her as Katniss drew the arrow, pulling the bowstring until it was pressing against her cheek. Her features twisted into a grimace as she felt the burn. _That's going to be sore tomorrow._

She was so out of practice, it was laughable. It was a far cry from college, when her scholarship depended on her performance on the archery team. But between work and Gale's increasing demands on her time—up until their breakup, of course—Katniss hadn't touched a bow and arrow in almost a year. Which was ironic, since hunting was one of the first things they had bonded over in the earlier years of their friendship.

It wasn't as if Katniss _looked_ out of shape. Eating healthy and running a few laps around Lake Como once a week kept her looking athletic, and her weight only fluctuated within one or two pounds of what it was when she graduated. (Prim, on the other hand, was snacking her way to medical school, resulting in fuller cheeks, wider hips, and love handles that Rory couldn't keep his hands off of whenever he thought Katniss wasn't paying attention.) But today at the archery range, the effects of neglecting her sport and hunching over a desk in a government office five days a week were making themselves abundantly clear.

Katniss let the arrow fly. It made a satisfying _thunk_ as it lodged itself firmly in the target just a few inches shy of the center, in the nine-point range.

"Nice shot," her father remarked from his wheelchair.

Katniss made a face. "It'll do."

"My turn."

In one swift motion, Adrian Everdeen nocked an arrow in his bow, raised it to eye level, and released. The arrow flew straight into the inner ten-point ring, and Katniss knew without looking that her father was very pleased with himself.

"Pretty good for a cripple," he said smugly.

Her father would never walk again, and for a time he had fallen into a deep depression as a result of his disability, but he was alive and that was all that mattered to Katniss.

"Just you wait," Katniss told him. "Give me a month and I'll blow you out of the water."

"I'm sure of it." His broad smile turned wistful. "I'm glad we came out here today."

"So am I, Dad."

Adrian cleared his throat. "I know it's not my place, but—" He hesitated. "Edward says Gale didn't take your breakup very well. I just wanted to ask how you were doing."

"I'm fine, Dad." Katniss felt her nose start to sting, a sure sign that she was going to start crying soon unless she did something about it. "Really. And Gale is in Europe now—he'll get over me soon enough."

"Okay, Kat." Her father was the only one who called her that. Well, her father and Johanna, when she was teasing her. Which was often. Even now that Jo was living in Denmark, she still managed to tease Katniss almost as much as when they'd been sharing a dorm room.

"Johanna called," Katniss said, changing the subject. "She's seeing someone new."

Of course, those weren't the exact same words Jo had used. More like, _I met this insanely hot guy and I literally cannot stop fucking him. Do you know how expensive condoms are in Copenhagen?_ Which, honestly, was as close to a declaration of love as Jo got these days. But Katniss wasn't about to quote Johanna Mason verbatim in front of her father.

"Good for her," Adrian said. "Listen, Kat… I'm sorry if you ever felt any pressure from me to keep seeing Gale, or even to go out with him in the first place. It was never my intention to make you think that was what I wanted. Whomever you want to be in a relationship with, or even if you don't want to be in a relationship at all, I'm going to support you. I'm going to be happy for you. And the same goes for Prim."

"There's nothing to apologize for," she insisted. "I didn't feel any pressure."

Her father smiled wanly. "I suppose I should be glad your mother and I raised you to be such a terrible liar."

Katniss sighed. What was she supposed to say? _I went out with Gale because I was young, immature, and selfish. I thought the only way I could keep my best friend, was to be his girlfriend._ _I_ stayed _with Gale, because you would have died in that cave-in if it weren't for Mr. Hawthorne, and being with Gale made me feel as if—in some way—the debt had been repaid. I stayed, because of_ course _Prim had to start dating Rory, and I didn't want to break up our big, happy Everdeen–Hawthorne family. I stayed because, at the end of the day, Gale and I were the same, and I made the mistake of thinking kindred spirits were equal to soulmates._

In fact, if Posy hadn't let slip that Gale was planning to propose, Katniss wasn't sure she would have worked up the courage to break up with him that day at Minnehaha Falls. "I felt _some_ pressure," she admitted, reaching into her quiver for another arrow. "But now I'm fine."

Her next shot landed dead center. If she and her father had been using the same target, her arrow would have landed right on top of his. It might even have split it in two. "See?" she said, pumping her fist in the air as she turned back to face him. "I'm fine."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Peeta was kneading dough when Katniss walked into the soup kitchen.

"Katniss," he said, his handsome face lighting up in surprise. "You're early."

"I'm sorry for missing last week," Katniss said simply. "This was the least I could do. What's on the menu?"

"Minestrone," Peeta responded. "And you don't need to apologize, Katniss. I'm happy to take whatever you can give me." Katniss thought she saw the faintest hint of a blush on his cheeks. "I mean, that's the whole point of volunteering, right?"

"Yeah, but still. I made a promise."

Peeta used his arm to swipe a bead of sweat from his forehead. "Well, since you're feeling guilty, you may as well get started on the soup," he told her with an easy grin. "I've been soaking the beans all day, so they should be ready."

Katniss slipped on an apron and fell in beside him to wash her hands. Soon, they were working in comfortable silence.

"I know you brought us lamb stew and bread the other day," she said quietly as she chopped the cabbage. "Thank you."

"I thought you might not be feeling well," he admitted sheepishly. "And we made lamb stew that day—I didn't want you to miss out on it. I know you like lamb stew the best."

Her chest tightened. Peeta was always like this: looking after everyone, putting everyone else's needs above his own. Did he have anyone to look after him? She was overcome by a sudden rush of shame when she realized she didn't know. She'd felt an instant connection with Peeta ever since they met last year; with Johanna overseas, Prim busy with her studies and with Rory, and Gale being insufferable, Peeta made her feel a little less lonely. But even though she often felt as if they had known each other forever, Katniss actually knew very little about this kind, selfless man. Did Peeta have family, other friends, a girlfriend? When he dropped out of the seminary, was that because he had fallen in love? And if so, who was the lucky girl? She would have remembered if Peeta mentioned anyone before.

She stole a glance at Peeta to check if he was wearing a crucifix. He wasn't. But he had a surprisingly broad chest, something Katniss had never noticed before. And, dear lord, the way the muscles rippled in his arms. She could watch him knead dough all day.

"I guess you've heard about me and Gale," Katniss said, a little more loudly than she intended. She hadn't planned on talking about Gale, or even talking much at all. Jo called her the world champion of not talking. But, now, saying her ex-boyfriend's name in Peeta's presence made her feel... safe, somehow. _Safe from what?_

"I'm really sorry about that." Peeta turned to look at her, genuine unhappiness reflected in his clear, ice blue eyes. "Was it amicable?"

"As amicable as you can expect." Katniss sighed. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Why did you enter the seminary?" She had never brought it up before; she didn't like to pry. But breaking up with Gale was the biggest decision Katniss had made in her life so far, and suddenly she had a burning desire to ask Peeta about the biggest decision he'd made in his. "And why did you leave?"

Peeta was silent for a moment. Katniss was about to tell him that he didn't have to talk about it if he didn't want to, when he opened his mouth and began to speak.

"My brother died of brain cancer a few years ago," he said quietly. "Josef and I... we were very close, and it was his faith that got him through the pain and helped him make peace with his fate. When he passed away, I missed him so much... so much, that I guess I subconsciously started taking on aspects of his personality. My way of keeping his memory alive, I suppose. He was gone, but his faith lived on through me.

"I'm not saying that was the only reason, of course," Peeta added quickly. "Our parents sent us to Catholic school, and I remember going to the chapel there and just staring in awe at the stained glass windows, the sculptures, the architecture. You know how much I geek out over art." He looked slightly embarrassed.

Katniss gestured toward the mural on the wall: children playing in a meadow, surrounded by wildflowers. The mural she had watched Peeta himself paint not too long ago. "You have an amazing gift," she said sincerely. "You should be proud."

"Thank you." Peeta blushed again. "So, yeah. I went to Catholic school as a kid, and I grew up associating going to church with... peace. A safe haven where I could be alone with my thoughts. A sanctuary, as cliché as that sounds." He let out a short laugh. "It wasn't until much later that I realized I just had a really shitty life at home. Anything that took me away from that was a godsend."

Katniss had to smile. "I didn't know you had such a mouth on you. Now I'm thinking that you probably got kicked out of the seminary."

"No, no, that was my decision. I was disillusioned. As a priest, I would have to be a defender of the faith, and there are some aspects of the Christian faith, and the way it's practiced in the Catholic Church, that are harder to defend than others."

"But things are looking up now, right? The new pope, isn't he trying to make changes for the better?"

"I'd like to think so," Peeta said. "But that's a problem in itself. Why wait until now to make those reforms? Why does it depend so much on the person in power?" He heaved a sigh. "I had too many doubts, too many questions, and nobody could answer them to my satisfaction. So I quit. It seems like a big deal, and it was, but it was also easier than you'd think. I was just in pre-theology at the time. I was nowhere near getting my master's in divinity or being ordained or anything like that."

"Does that mean..." Katniss hesitated. "Does that mean you don't believe in God anymore?"

"I honestly don't know," Peeta said, furrowing his brow. "I want to believe there is a higher power. I want to believe that my life means something to someone, that all this isn't just random. But if it isn't random, then that means everything that has happened, everything that is happening, everything that _will_ happen... everything was all pre-destined, decided long before we were even born. And that includes the good _and_ the bad. I look around at all of the suffering and injustice in the world, and in my darkest moments I think... a god who lets that happen doesn't deserve my love, my faith, or my service." He looked at Katniss with pained eyes. "What do you think?"

"I didn't grow up religious, like you or your brother," she said. "We would go to church sometimes. But it was complicated." Katniss and Prim, like the Hawthornes, were mixed race—part Ojibwe, part Caucasian—and organized religion was one of those things that different branches of their family tree could never quite agree on. "Dad used to say, you wouldn't have to believe in a god that was real. It would be like believing in the postman. The postman exists, whether or not you believe in him."

Peeta's lips quirked up in a smile. "He _used_ to say that?"

Katniss snorted. "Well, he almost died in a mining accident when I was younger. After that, he was a bit more careful about the things he said. You know, in case he pissed off the wrong god. Or, I guess I should say, the _right_ god."

"Fair enough. But I asked you what _you_ thought, Katniss, and you still haven't answered my question."

Katniss pondered this in silence for a while. "We didn't go to the same schools, but do you know that experiment they make kids do in science class? The one where you leave a glass of milk out on the counter. Then, after a week, you look at it under a microscope."

"Yeah, I remember."

"I was thinking about it again the other day, and it struck me... there were millions of bacteria in that milk. Living things that _I_  created, indirectly. What if that's how we came to be?"

Peeta raised an eyebrow. "You think God is just some kid who forgot to put the milk back in the fridge?"

"It's not a perfect analogy. And it's not necessarily what I believe. But it would explain some of the things you were talking about... the things that don't add up otherwise. It would mean there _is_ a higher power, except he didn't really mean to create us, and that's why he doesn't care whether we suffer or not. He's not neglecting us on purpose, he's just... not really invested, and that's fine. Maybe he doesn't even know any of this is happening, because as far as he's concerned we're just bacteria in a glass of milk on his kitchen counter. He's just going to pour us all down the drain anyway."

Peeta considered it. "Huh. I never thought of it that way."

This was the most Katniss had ever spoken about religion to anyone, and she found that she was enjoying it immensely. "I guess the important question is... does it matter what we believe, in the grand scheme of things?"

"If there is such a thing as life after death, or heaven and hell, and if our beliefs influence what happens to us or where we end up, then yes. But if not..." Peeta chuckled wryly. "It's all too much to think about sometimes. See, this is why I dropped out, why I ended up where I am now. I'll never be a priest, but I still want to serve others."

Katniss allowed herself a small smile, a feeling of warmth spreading throughout her body. She liked talking to Peeta. Gale had always been a little jealous of him, but now that she and Gale weren't together anymore... well, now she could talk to Peeta all she wanted without feeling guilty.

Just then, Rue walked through the door, with her older brother Thresh and his girlfriend Emma in tow. "Katniss!" Rue exclaimed in delight. "We weren't sure if you were going to turn up."

"I couldn't stay away," Katniss found herself saying. "I missed Peeta too much."

Emma's ginger eyebrows shot up. "Oh, you did, didn't you?"

"Helping Peeta, I mean," Katniss corrected herself. "I missed helping Peeta too much. You know what I mean," she added defensively, her face growing pink.

Thresh smirked. "Yeah, of course we do."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

 

_Reykjavík_

 

Not only did Gale sleep through most of Sunday, missing two Skype calls from Thom and one from his mother in the process, but he also woke up at four o'clock on Monday morning. By then it was too late to go back to sleep, because he was supposed to meet Professor Latier and his boss over breakfast, but at the same time it was too early to get dressed. So he settled for doing pushups on the floor while he played back the voice messages that Finn had left on his hotel room phone.

"Mate, I convinced the girls to have dinner with us Monday night. Are you keen? Of course you're keen. Call me back when you get this."

"I swear to _God_ if you're still asleep I'm going to kick your door down and—hang on, I have another call."

"I'm freaking out. My models all came down with strep throat at the same time. I can't do this shoot by myself! It's on Tuesday and no one else can do it on such short notice. Can you fill in? Pretty please? The theme is modern Vikings. You'll get paid and everything, and I'll throw in a trip to the Blue Lagoon too. Talk soon."

Gale pulled himself up and walked over to the mirror. He wasn't blind; he knew he was easy on the eyes. One time back in college, he'd been roped into an amateur runway show, and they'd made a lot of money for charity. But that wasn't real modeling. Looking good and doing well in a professional photo shoot were two different things altogether. Besides, who would take him seriously as a professional engineer after seeing pictures of him in a wetsuit, pretending to be a surfing Viking? He felt silly enough just stringing those words together.

But Finn had said _models_ , plural, and if he was trying to get Gale on board, he was probably talking to the girls as well. With their contrasting features, Madge and Annie already looked like they'd emerged fully formed from a Tommy Hilfiger wet dream. Gale wouldn't say no to a day at the beach with Madge, even a beach that was freezing cold and had actual bits of ice floating on it, like in the pictures Finn had showed him on the plane.

Gale reached for his phone and tapped out a text. _Got your voicemails. I'm awake now but if you aren't, I'll call you after my interview._

He waited a few minutes, on the off chance that Finn was up and in the mood to talk. When nothing happened, he shrugged to himself and dropped back onto the floor. He might as well work on his abs while he was at it.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

When Gale showed up at the hotel restaurant later that morning, freshly showered and buttoned into one of his better suits, Professor Latier was nowhere to be found. Neither was Alma Coin, the CEO he'd read up on in preparation for the interview.

"Can I help you?" the hostess asked with a pleasant smile on her face.

"Um, I'm supposed to be meeting Dr. B.T. Latier," Gale told her. "From Stiga Tek."

The hostess checked her clipboard. "You are Mr. Hawthorne, correct?"

"Yes. Gale Hawthorne."

"Dr. Latier isn't here yet, but his colleague is." She smiled. "Let me show you to your table."

It was a table set for four, but so far there was only one person there: a pretty but stern-looking young woman in her early to mid-twenties, with her long black hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail. She stared intently at the open laptop in front of her, working on a PowerPoint presentation.

"Ms. Valkonen," the hostess said. "Mr. Hawthorne is here."

The young woman rose to her feet, just barely coming up to Gale's shoulder even in what looked like four-inch stiletto heels. " _Takk_ ," she thanked the hostess, who then took her cue to leave.

Ms. Valkonen smoothed down her pencil skirt with one swift, efficient movement, and held out her hand for him to shake. "Gale," she said crisply. She reminded him a little of Katniss on a bad day, Jo on a regular day, or Annie on Saturday when she was trying to scare him away from Madge. "I'm Alma's executive assistant. You can call me Clove."

"Nice to meet you," Gale responded. Her handshake was firm and she had a slight accent he couldn't quite place. "Are you Swedish?"

Clove looked at him coldly. "I'm from Helsinki." She paused, her dark, almost black eyes flickering up and down his body briefly before she added, "That's in Finland."

"I know," Gale said, feeling stung. Not all Americans were hopeless at geography. "I learned all the capitals when I had the chicken pox."

Clove just stared at him.

"Ha ha, Eddie Izzard joke." Gale waited for her to laugh, or smile, or change her expression to anything else but disdain. But she was giving him nothing. "All right then."

It was going to be a long morning.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Alma Coin was an extremely beautiful, flawlessly put together woman in her fifties who exuded intelligence, power, and authority. Pin-straight gray hair without a strand out of place, a simple red sheath dress that commanded attention and admiration. "I'm so glad you could join us today, Gale," she said smoothly. "Beetee has been raving on and on about you."

"Thank you, Ms. Coin," he said automatically. "I was lucky to have a mentor like Professor Latier."

"Call me Alma," she told him. "We're all adults here."

"And I'm not your teacher anymore," Latier said. "So just call me Beetee."

Alma rested her chin on one hand, tapping a perfectly manicured fingernail on a razor-sharp cheekbone. "So you work for Coriolanus."

"Yes, I do," Gale answered. "I've been at Panem Industries since I graduated five years ago."

"Did you know he was my stepbrother? My mother used to be married to his father, before they divorced and we moved to Sweden."

If it wasn't in her profile on the company website, Gale didn't know about it. "No, I didn't," he replied. What else could he say to that? "That must have been an interesting childhood," he added, hoping that he looked appropriately animated, without being too eager. The effort was exhausting him. How on earth did Finn do it?

Alma arched an eyebrow. "Oh, it certainly was."

The three of them continued to chat over breakfast, and all in all it was the most pleasant interview Gale ever had. Or it would have been, if he could ignore the dagger looks Clove was giving him, or how she was cutting into her eggs in a chillingly precise way that reminded him of a throat being slit. What was her problem?

"Beetee, I'm sold on your boy," Alma declared, dabbing at her mouth with a cloth napkin after almost an hour. "That's just the kind of critical, creative thinking we want at Stiga Tek."

"Have I ever let you down?" Beetee responded, his eyes crinkling up in a smile behind his glasses.

Alma turned to Gale. "Clove will put you in touch with our human resources department, and they can take it from there with a formal offer," she told him. "If you accept, and assuming you give your two weeks' notice as soon as possible, we can draw up the contracts for you to sign in August or September when your non-compete clause runs out. I do recommend, however, that you start looking for a place to live as soon as possible. Since you don't speak Swedish, it's best if you personally visit Stockholm. You can do a quick scouting trip now, while you're here in Europe. If you need any pointers, just ask Clove. She'll be happy to help."

Gale didn't need to look at Clove to know she most certainly wasn't. "Thank you, Alma," he said. "This is an incredible opportunity, and I can't wait to get started."

They rose from their chairs, and Gale shook their hands again as they prepared to leave. "My wife Wiress is here with me," Beetee told him. "What do you say we celebrate at dinner tonight? If you don't have any plans, of course."

"That sounds wonderful," Gale said, but his grin disappeared when he remembered Finn's voicemail. "But, I almost forgot, I'm meeting a few friends tonight. How about tomorrow?"

"There's a networking dinner at the conference tomorrow," Beetee said. "Let's just do tonight, and feel free to bring your friends. That is, if they don't mind hanging out with a couple of old fuddie-duddies."

"Not at all." If Gale remembered correctly, Beetee's wife had taught history at the university—or was it archaeology? Anthropology? Something in the humanities. Madge would probably enjoy talking to her about Vikings. And Annie was an academic herself; she would be used to it. Heck, she might even like it.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

"Well, if it isn't the most brilliant young engineer I've had the pleasure of poaching," Beetee exclaimed later that night, grinning from ear to ear as he approached the table. "I feel as if I haven't seen you in _ages_."

"Beetee," Gale said, standing up and grasping the older man's hand. "Thanks again for inviting me to dinner. And for extending the invitation to my friends."

"Ha! This is coming out of your first paycheck," Beetee chortled. He watched in amusement as his former student turned slightly green. "That was a joke, Gale. It's what colleagues do—joke around with each other."

"Um," Gale said, flustered. "You got me there."

"You remember Wiress," Beetee said, patting his wife's arm that was threaded through his.

"Of course," Gale said. "Nice to see you again, uh—Wiress." He still felt strange calling professors by their first names.

"I didn't think it was possible, but you've gotten even taller since college," Wiress said, laughing as she shook his hand. "My goodness."

Wiress turned his hand over. "I remember this ring—I've always admired it. May I see?"

"Uh, sure," Gale responded, pulling the ring off his finger and handing it to her.

Finn cleared his throat, and Gale remembered his manners. "Beetee, Wiress, this is my friend Finn."

Finn pumped Beetee's hand enthusiastically, nearly blinding the man with his dazzling smile. "The pleasure is all mine."

"You look familiar," Beetee said, squinting at the handsome redhead through his glasses. "Were you in the same graduating class as Gale?"

"No, sir, I'm a proud dropout of Melbourne Uni," Finn said with a chuckle. "I sat next to Gale on the plane coming here, and the rest is history."

"Finn is a professional surfer," Gale explained. "He's part owner of Aegir, the surfwear brand."

"We're coming out with a new line of wetsuits for winter surfing," Finn told Beetee. "In fact, we're doing a photo shoot for the ad campaign tomorrow." He coughed. "At least, if I can convince a certain someone to help out."

"Fascinating! I used to do a bit of surfing back in the day. Never was very good, though. I believe the correct term is abysmal." Beetee turned back to Gale. "Where are the others? I thought you said there were going to be four of you."

"They just went to the ladies' room," Gale said, glancing over his shoulder. "Speaking of which, here they come now."

"Professor Latier," Annie said, gracefully extending a slender hand to Beetee. "I've read some of your work. I'm Annika—I do marine biology here at the university."

Wiress looked up and startled everyone by pulling Madge into a warm embrace. "And you must be Margaretha."

Madge returned the hug, looking pleasantly surprised. "It's wonderful to meet you," she said. "It's Margaret, but you can call me Madge."

"How did you know her name?" Gale asked Wiress in amazement. "I don't think I mentioned it before."

"Oh, I didn't think you would brand yourself with another woman's name," Wiress said with a smile. "The two of you make a lovely couple. I take it you go back a long way. Let me guess—college sweethearts? High school sweethearts?"

Madge furrowed her brow. "Beg your pardon?"

"We're not a couple," Gale felt compelled to say, as much as he wished it were otherwise. "We just met on Saturday, at the airport."

"Oh! I'm terribly sorry," Wiress said, putting a hand to her mouth. "I just assumed. And it is such an amazing coincidence, when you think about it."

"Start from the beginning, honey," Beetee said soothingly. "Our minds don't work as quickly as yours."

"I specialize in the Viking Age, you see," Wiress hastened to explain. "The runes on Gale's ring—they spell out her name."

" _What_?" Gale and Finn said in unison.

Wiress held out the ring, rotating it slowly and pointing to each mysterious symbol in turn. "M-A-R-G and so on... Margaretha. One of the variations of Margaret. It was quite popular in medieval Europe, including the Viking expansion era." She smiled apologetically at Gale. "I thought you chose your ring especially for that reason."

"Oh my god," Annie said, her eyes round. "Oh my _god_."

Gale stood there, his mouth hanging open. This was all too much for him to take. Their near-identical suitcases. Her traveling with Annie, him befriending Finn. His name, and how it matched  _her_ name, or at least her mother's maiden name, as he'd found out eventually. And now, the ring his father had given him, the ring he'd worn every day since he was eighteen, before he was even aware of Madge's existence. Could these things be more than coincidences? So far he hadn't dared give it a name, but now he wondered—could it be destiny?

"I had no idea," he said. "I swear."

"I know," Madge assured him. But something had changed in her eyes, and Gale was desperate to find out what. "I believe you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line about believing in the postman was totally stolen from Terry Pratchett's _Witches Abroad_. RIP—or, more appropriately, GNU—Sir Terry. You are much loved and sorely missed.


	6. Eið (Oath)

Wiress placed the ring in the palm of Madge's hand. It was cool to the touch, but she felt as if it could burn through her skin. It was surprisingly heavy. 

Madge could hardly trust herself to speak, but she had to ask. "Would you know," she said haltingly, "how old this ring is?"

Wiress shook her head regretfully. "Pure metal artifacts are difficult to date. If this ring were discovered today, we might be able to analyze other items that were found along with it. And we can make assumptions based on the artistic style, but that's easy enough to imitate. I'm fairly confident, however, that Gale's ring was not mass-produced. Whether it was made by a Viking craftsman one thousand years ago, or by an American smith who is still alive today... this was a bespoke piece of jewelry, custom-made for a rather large man who had someone named Margaretha in his life."

Finn's eyes gleamed. "I reckon Margaretha isn't a first name." He elbowed Gale in the ribs. "I reckon someone was trying to spell 'Margaret Hawthorne' and ran out of space."

"Finn," Gale groaned.

"Oh my _god_ ," Annie repeated, unable to say anything else for the past few minutes.

Beetee eyed them with amusement. "Let's all sit down and order," he suggested. "I think we all need something to drink."

Madge nodded gratefully. While Annie and Finn weren't looking, she slipped the ring back in Gale's hand. And just like that day at the airport, the slightest brush of his fingers against her skin sent a jolt of electricity through her body.

_There are three parts to the bride-price, and three animals that can be sacrificed at a wedding: a goat for Thor, a sow for Freyja, a goat or a horse for Freyr. Then there is the exchange of rings, and the exchange of swords, to hold in trust for their children until they too were married._

Madge dug her fingers into her temple. _I've been reading too much,_ she thought. _I can't get these things out of my head._

Her purse, heavy with one of Grandpa Donner's books, banged against her side as she slid into a seat next to Annie. She had wanted to show it to Wiress, but now she was too embarrassed to engage the professor further.

 _A country full of people who can read the eddas and the sagas in the original Old Norse, and I still can't get these books translated,_ she reflected dismally. Not that there was any shortage of takers. That morning, Annie had brought Madge to the linguistics department and then to the medieval studies department, and everyone practically started salivating the moment Madge mentioned she had inherited books written in Old Norse.

Madge knew Grandpa Donner's books probably belonged in a museum, with people who actually knew what to do with them. Even Aunt Maysilee would agree, if she knew just how rare the books possibly were. But Madge wasn't ready to give them up just yet. _I don't want to forget._

"Now this, even I know the history of," Beetee pronounced as their drinks arrived. He held up a shot glass full of the clear liquid. " _Brennivín_ , the burning wine. Also known as the Black Death—probably because the bottles were marked with a skull and crossbones during the prohibition years."

"Prohibition?" Gale questioned. "In Iceland?"

Wiress nodded in confirmation. "All alcohol was banned in the 1900s, then brought back in stages. Beer wasn't legalized until 1989."

"Ooh, I was here last Beer Day," Finn piped up. "Good times."

"Why would they legalize beer last?" Madge wondered aloud, her self-consciousness finally subsiding to the point that she could contribute to the conversation again.

"The way it was explained to me, it was because beer is cheaper," Annie replied. "That makes it easier to buy more, and drink more."

"Fair warning, Gale, the folks over at the Stockholm office take their drinking very seriously," Beetee said with a grin.

"Gale can take 'em," Finn declared. "Gale drinks Polish vodka."

Beetee chuckled as he raised his glass higher. "Well, then, this calls for a toast. To new jobs, new friendships, and new lives. To new beginnings."

"To new beginnings," Wiress echoed, smiling warmly. " _Skál_."

Madge's eyes met Gale's as she lifted her own drink in the air. _To new beginnings._

" _Skál_ ," Gale said, and to Madge it felt as if he were speaking more to her than to anyone else at the table, at the restaurant, in the entire world.

The truth was that all of this—Gale, Finn, all of them together, but most especially Gale—it didn't _feel_ new. It was exciting, yes, and more terrifying than Madge cared to admit. But no, it didn't feel new to her. It didn't feel new at all.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

The brennivín set Madge's throat on fire on the way down, before settling warmly and comfortably in her belly. She coughed, wiping a few stray drops from her bottom lip. "It's like drinking licorice-flavored acid."

Finn pretended to smash his shot glass on the floor _._ "Another!"

"Calm down, Chris Hemsworth," Gale laughed. "Your Aussie is showing."

"Back home, gulping down a shot in one go is called skulling," Finn remarked. "I never made the connection before, but I'm guessing it has to do with _skál_."

"You're absolutely correct," Wiress responded. "There are many Australians of European descent that can probably trace their lineage to the Vikings if they go back far enough. What's your last name, Finn?"

"Odair," Finn answered. "My family, way back, was Irish."

"There you have it," Wiress said triumphantly. "Ireland was one of the first places the Vikings plundered and then settled. Odair could be a variation of _Adair_ , or it could also refer to _oddr_ , one of the Old Norse words for 'spear'."

"That's perfect," Finn proclaimed. "Absolutely perfect. Can you do Gale next?"

Gale held up his hands. "Both my parents are a quarter Native American." Specifically, Ojibwe.

"What about the other three quarters?" Annie wanted to know. "Or six-eighths, to be more precise?"

"You're from Minnesota," Madge said. "That's pretty much the Scandinavian immigration capital of the United States."

"Don't forget the Vikings were in North America centuries before Columbus was even born," Beetee added. "They could have intermarried with the locals."

"And you have gray eyes," Wiress observed. "That's very common in the Baltic states, where Swedish Vikings used to raid and trade."

Wiress directed her attention at Annie. "Speaking of Sweden, Annika is a popular name there. It was the name of Pippi Longstocking's friend."

Annie's cheeks flushed. "It probably doesn't mean anything in my case," she said cautiously. "Anyone can give their child a Swedish first name. As for my family name, I've always taken for granted that Cresta was Spanish or Italian."

"The Vikings were there," Madge chimed in. "Ragnar Loðbrok's son, Björn Ironside, was supposed to have attacked Spain, Italy, the Mediterranean… then there's Rollo, the first Duke of Normandy in France. It's amazing how much of the world they explored. Russia, Byzantium... even the Middle East and North Africa. They've even found Viking graves with little statues of Buddha." She felt slightly foolish after her monologue, but Wiress smiled at her encouragingly.

"Said the blondest, most Scandinavian-looking person at this entire table," Annie deadpanned.

"You do look very Nordic, Madge," Beetee commented. "I'm fairly sure you can trace your roots back to the Vikings."

"I think I do have Scandinavian blood, but I'm not sure how much or from where, exactly," Madge admitted. "I can say for certain that some of my family were German, and weren't the Vikings a Germanic people?"

"Your mother's family is named Donner," Gale said. "The German version of Thor."

Finn slung his arm around Gale's shoulder. "This is another one of those signs, mate," he said in smug satisfaction. "The three of you should all do the shoot with me. It's what our ancestors would have wanted."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Beetee drew the line at ordering more brennivín, but he did get several pitchers of the best passionfruit sangria Gale had ever tasted. By the time they had to leave Tapas Barinn, Gale, Finn, and the girls were all more than a little tipsy, and the taxi driver kept glancing warily at them during the short ride to Annie's apartment, obviously worried that one of them would throw up.

"I'm sloshed," Finn groaned from the front passenger seat, leaning his head out the window and filling his lungs with the cool night air. "I'm sloshed _and_ stuffed."

"How good was dessert, though?" Annie let out an involuntary moan at the memory. She'd warmed considerably since Saturday, even leaning on Finn's arm for all of two seconds while waiting for a taxi. "I've tasted heaven, and it's called white chocolate _skyr_ mousse with raspberry coulis."

Madge sighed happily, pressing her palms against her cheeks. "I think my face went numb from laughing so hard."

"Oh, that's the alcohol talking," Gale chuckled. That night's drinking was nothing compared to his post-Katniss bender, and he was the least inebriated out of the four of them. "Finn's jokes weren't _that_ funny."

The taxi made a turn, and even though it hadn't been a sharp or sudden movement in any way, it was enough to send Madge crashing into Gale.

"Whoops," she giggled. She clutched at his thigh to steady herself, and before Gale could stop himself he was thinking of how she would look on the bed in his hotel room, in his apartment back in St. Paul, in the new place he would get for himself in Stockholm.

 _Don't be a creep,_ Gale told himself. _You're going to be spending a lot of time, in very close quarters, with this girl very soon. Be her friend, keep it in your pants, and everything's going to be fine._

But it was too late: all he could see in his mind's eye was Madge's golden hair spilled across his pillow, her pupils dilated with desire, her long legs spread wide for him as he drank in the most intoxicating thing of all. _Her_.

The realization came as no surprise, but it sent his world reeling just the same, more than alcohol ever could.

He _craved_ her.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Annie unlocked the door and they all spilled into the apartment, laughing uncontrollably at something Finn had said that, honestly, none of them could actually remember.

"You should've asked the driver to wait," Annie scolded Finn half-heartedly, squinting at the glass of sparkling water with lemon and ginger that she was pouring out for him. "You shouldn't have taken the taxi with us at all. You could've walked back to the hotel from the restaurant."

"What kind of gentlemen would that make us?" Finn wanted to know, right before he belched. "Sorry."

"We can grab another taxi," Gale told Annie. "Worst-case scenario, I carry Finn to the hotel. I don't mind."

Annie glanced at the couch, where Madge had promptly collapsed upon entering. "Maybe you boys should crash here. Especially since we're driving to the shoot together tomorrow."

At some point between the smoked puffin with blueberry sauce and the grilled lamb skewers, Gale had finally given in to Finn's wheedling. After that, it was only a matter of time before the girls followed suit.

"It's going to be heaps of fun, Annie," Finn promised, catching the glass when Annie slid it in his direction. "It'll just be like the old days, driving out to the Goldie for a day to catch the surf."

"Except the water's, like, five degrees Fahrenheit and we're going to be dressed like Vikings," Gale reminded him.

Finn dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "You won't regret this. We're going to have a good time, see the sights. Plus, more money for you to spend on your trip with Madge. That's always good, eh, Gale?"

Annie froze in the middle of pouring another glass. "What trip with Madge?"

The deadly tone of her voice rendered Gale suddenly sober. He cleared his throat, aware that there was no point in trying to beat around the bush, and no way he could make the truth sound any less damning. "I, uh, invited Madge to come with me. To Oslo, and maybe Copenhagen. This week." He swallowed awkwardly. "To visit my friends. You know Jo Mason, right?"

The water was running over the rim. Finn quickly took the glass and the bottle of Egils Kristall away from Annie.

"When was she planning to tell me?" Annie asked quietly.

"I—I don't know," Gale stammered. "I mean, she _said_ she was interested. But we haven't bought the plane tickets yet, so it's not one hundred percent official. We don't have an itinerary or anything, either. For all I know, she might have changed her mind, and that's why she hasn't told you."

"That's not the point!" Annie cried. "The point is that I'm trying to look out for my best friend in the entire world, and she can't even tell me that she wants to traipse around Europe with a guy she just met. What's next? Are the two of you going to elope? You've already got her name on your ring, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised if you do."

She ran to her room and slammed the door.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Madge knocked quietly. "Annie," she said, leaning her forehead against the door. "Annie, I'm sorry. I was going to tell you tonight. I just got a bit carried away by all the fun we were having at the restaurant. And all the booze." She regretted that last part as soon as it came out of her mouth.

From inside her bedroom, Annie snorted. "Thanks a lot," she said sarcastically. "That makes me feel _so_ much better."

Madge jiggled the doorknob. "Annie, please let me in."

"You should have told me the moment he asked. And you _definitely_ shouldn't have said yes without checking with me first."

"I know that."

"Gale told Finn, and he's only known him for two, three days. We've been best friends for twenty _years_."

"I messed up, I know." Madge closed her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Don't you trust me at all, to tell me these things?"

"I trust you with my life. You know that," Madge argued, feeling a sob rise in her throat. "Don't you trust _me_ to decide where I should travel and with whom? I know I completely misjudged Seneca, but..." She trailed off. "What will it take to convince you I'm safe with Gale?"

Without warning, the door swung open. Madge nearly fell over, but she quickly righted herself and regained her balance—but not her composure.

"You don't need to convince me," Annie said coldly, holding her open laptop in her hands. On the screen: an active Skype session, with Aunt Maysilee and Uncle Haymitch staring back at her. "Convince _them_."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

 

_Seattle, Washington_

 

Half a world away, in the home he shared with his wife and their three sons in Seattle, Haymitch Abernathy scowled at the dark-haired young man his niece had met in Reykjavík. "What's your name, boy?"

"Gale, sir," the young man replied, an uncomfortable look on his face. "Gale Hawthorne."

"Any relation to Edward Hawthorne? You look like him."

"He's my father, sir." Gale hesitated. "How do you know each other?"

"I'll ask the questions around here," Haymitch barked.

Maysilee put a hand on her husband's arm. "Edward joined Haymitch's fraternity in college," she explained gently. "That was after Haymitch graduated, but we knew him, and we always liked him. I remember he was very handsome." She winked at Madge, much to her husband's chagrin. "How is your father doing nowadays, Gale?"

"Good, good," Gale said, looking slightly relieved.

"You're not off the hook just yet, boy," Haymitch growled. "If I remember correctly, Edward knocked Hazelle up and dropped out."

Madge groaned, covering her face in her hands. "Uncle Haymitch!"

"Yeah, that was me," Gale admitted, forcing a laugh. "I mean, that's how I, um, came to be. How I was... conceived."

Haymitch glared at him. "And you think you can just whisk away Eric and Mat's only child to Norway?"

"And Denmark," Annie interjected.

"To visit Johanna Mason," Madge countered. "Jo is Gale's friend, too. She can vouch for him."

" _Johanna Mason_?" Haymitch's face turned purple. " _Johanna Mason_? You're not making this any easier for yourself, missy."

Maysilee poked her husband's side. "Jo is a lovely girl and you know it."

"She's stark raving bonkers!"

"With all due respect, sir," Gale said. "First of all, you probably already know that my parents had been together for years by the time I came along. They hadn't planned on starting a family so soon, but they were going to, eventually. Second, Jo may have a bit of a reputation, but she takes good care of her friends. Third, I haven't known Madge for very long, but I think she's smart enough and responsible enough to make her own decisions. She's certainly old enough, at least."

Gale took a deep breath, and Haymitch watched with unblinking eyes as the young man touched his left wrist. "Fourth, I promise to you that I will protect your niece, and bring her back safely to Annie," he vowed. "I won't—I won't ask her, or _expect_ her, to do anything she doesn't want to do."

"So sure that she'll want to, eh?" Haymitch sneered.

"Uncle Haymitch!" Madge protested. She turned to Maysilee with beseeching eyes.

"That's not what I meant," Gale sputtered. "That's not what I meant at _all_."

"Save it, boy." Haymitch crossed his arms over his chest and faced Madge. "Margaret Undersee," he began sternly. "Annie, your aunt and I—we only want what's best for you. There's nothing we can do to stop you from going wherever you want, or doing whatever you want, with this boy, or anyone else for that matter. But we're trusting you to take care of yourself, with or without Hawthorne. We would appreciate it if you didn't do anything to jeopardize that trust."

Madge nodded. "I won't," she promised. "You won't be sorry."

Satisfied, Haymitch then narrowed his eyes at Gale. "And _you_ just swore an oath to me in front of all these people. I love Madge like a daughter. If you go back on your word, so help me, I'll know where to find you."

When there was nothing else to say, Haymitch closed the lid of his laptop, only to see his wife smirking at him. "Now what?" he grumbled.

Maysilee scooted closer to him on the couch and wound her arms around his neck. "Well, this is certainly taking me back to when _you_ first met my family," she said coyly, lacing her fingers together behind her husband's head.

"I'm insulted," Haymitch said, even as his arms encircled her waist. "That was completely different. When I met you, I didn't ask you to jump on a plane with me to Norway."

"We were sixteen and still living at home. Madge is twenty-five, and a lawyer. Believe me, if we'd met when _we_ were twenty-five, we would've done exactly what Gale and Madge are planning to do right now."

Haymitch winced. "Please don't say that."

"Incidentally, Gale reminds me of you."

"You could practically smell the alcohol on his breath from here."

Maysilee laughed. "Well, there's that, too." She rested her head on his shoulder. "But I specifically meant the way he speaks his mind."

"I'll give him credit for that," Haymitch conceded. "But not in front of Madge."

"You know what really sealed the deal for me, though?"

"What?"

Maysilee pushed her husband's hair back from his face and smiled. "That gesture he made just then, the fingers to the wrist." She pressed a kiss to his lips. "Whenever you make a promise, that's exactly the same thing _you_ do."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love History Channel's _Vikings_ , but the legendary Ragnar and the historical Rollo were most likely not brothers. Their careers were at least 40 years apart, at a time when the average life span at birth was 20.


	7. Ótti (Fear)

Ever since she was a little girl, sleep had never come easily to Annie. It was just the way her mind worked, she supposed. It was constantly racing: making lists and checking things off them simultaneously, jumping from one subject to another, reliving the past, anticipating the future.

At first, the only thing that could calm her young mind, and the only way she would ever drift off to sleep, was if her older brother Rafe were there to tuck her in. For years, they shared a room, and he would hold her hand as he told her bedtime stories of warriors from ages past, tall tales of adventure on the seven seas. She and Rafe weren't far apart in age—just three years—and it showed in his stories. They were simple in their construction, and gleefully violent in the way that only a little boy who had no real-life experience with death could conjure. But Annie loved his stories, because they were Rafe's, and because his familiar voice drowned out all the thoughts that were competing for attention in her head.

When Rafe turned nine, however, he decided he was too old to sleep in the same room as his little sister. Even though his new room was right next door, and even though he would still hold her hand and tell her stories until she fell asleep, it would never be the same again.

And then the nightmares came.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

_Annie woke up in a cold sweat, the acrid smell of smoke filling her lungs._ " _Mama?" she called out. "Papa?"_

_Out of the darkness, out of the shadows, her brother emerged. He looked older, somehow—not quite a man, but no longer a boy. "You must run, Annie," he whispered, his face pale. His voice was deeper, his tone more urgent, than she had ever heard before. "You must hide."_

" _Where will you go?" she cried. "Will you not come with me?"_

" _I will stay and fight by Father's side," her brother told her. "You must run away with Mother. The enemy has come, and they are burning the village to the ground."_

" _Quickly, quickly," their mother admonished, wrapping Annie in furs, shoving her tiny feet into her boots. "There is not a moment to spare."_

_Annie would never forget the way the cold winter air felt on her face, like a thousand needles pricking her skin the moment she stepped out of the warmth of their home. The way the winter chill seeped into her bones when her feet sank into the snow._

_The way her brother's decapitated head dropped out of the sky and landed at her feet. The bloodcurdling scream of her mother as she sagged to her knees. Rafe's green eyes, wide and unblinking, staring forever at the stars._

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

"It's your fault," their mother had reprimanded Rafe, when Annie's cries brought the entire family to her bedside that first night. "I told you to stop telling those dreadful stories."

"But she never had nightmares before," Rafe had protested.

It was only when little Madge Undersee started sleeping over on weekends that Annie found relief. As it turned out, her best friend's presence calmed Annie enough to send her into a deep, peaceful, dreamless sleep. And when Madge wasn't around, in time Annie learned to fall asleep to the sound of the radio or the TV. As long as there was white noise to occupy her hyperactive subconscious, the nightmares stayed away.

But every now and then the visions would return, though they were never exactly the same, and each time was more detailed than the last. The first time Rafe brought his then-girlfriend home from college in Minnesota, Johanna Mason appeared in Annie's dreams that very night, her face covered in blood and her eyes wild with rage as she hunted down Rafe's killers and tore them from limb to limb with an axe.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

 

_Reykjavík_

 

After the Skype call with Uncle Haymitch and Aunt Maysilee, Gale and Finn excused themselves to return to their hotel, leaving the girls alone to sort out their differences.

But Annie wasn't in the mood to talk. She said a tight-lipped goodbye to the boys, assuring Finn they were still on for the photo shoot even before he asked, and retreated to her room while Madge resigned herself to a night on the couch.

There Madge tossed and turned, angry at herself for trying to keep a secret from her best friend. Annie was always there for her; she had a tremendous maternal instinct, and Madge was the lucky recipient of all of it. Madge racked her brain for a single memory, some aspect of her life that didn't involve Annie in some way, and came up with nothing. Since that fateful first day of pre-ballet, they had been inseparable. Even after Annie moved to Australia and then Iceland for grad school, she checked in on Madge almost every day. Just last week, Annie dropped everything and flew all the way from Reykjavík to Seattle to be there for Madge after her parents died.

_What about you?_ Madge thought as she drifted off to sleep. _What have you done for Annie lately?_

Madge had only been asleep for thirty, maybe forty-five minutes when she was jarred awake by the sound of Annie screaming.

The bedroom door was unlocked, and Madge ran in without a second thought. "Annie?" she cried, her heart pounding. "What's wrong?"

Annie was thrashing in bed, sobbing in her sleep and whimpering incoherently. Madge climbed in under the comforter and embraced her, pinning Annie's arms to her sides. "It's just a dream," she said soothingly, even though Annie wasn't awake to hear. "It's just a dream."

Madge had always known Annie suffered from nightmares since childhood, but she had never actually seen her have one. The nightmares always seemed to go away whenever they were together. Madge pressed her forehead against Annie's temple, listening carefully to the words interspersed between the sobs.

_Finn._

_Come back._

_Come home._

Madge felt tears spring to her eyes. "Finn loves you, Annie," she whispered. Even though she had only known Finnick Odair for a few days, there was no doubt in her mind that it was true. " _I_ love you."

Madge tightened her embrace as Annie's convulsions began to subside. "There, there," she murmured. Madge could never repay Annie for everything she had done, was still doing for her, but she was determined to try. Even if it was just for tonight, even if there was a chance Annie wouldn't remember it in the morning, this time Madge was going to be the one to take care of _her_.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

She'd cried in her sleep again. Annie could tell from the way her eyes seemed sewn shut and nearly impossible to open. She felt around on her nightstand for her rosewater toner and spritzed some on her face. Carefully, she rubbed the crust off her eyelids, grimacing to herself the entire time. _Gross._

Annie put on her glasses and took stock of her surroundings. Madge was curled up in bed next to her, still wearing most of what she had on at the restaurant the evening before: a close-fitting button-down shirt and a plaid miniskirt, although she had taken off her cardigan and leggings.

Before Annie could look away, Madge opened her eyes and lifted her head from the pillow. "Hey," she said, pulling herself up on her elbows. "I, uh, hope you don't mind. You were—you were having a bad dream last night."

Annie pressed the heel of her palm to her throbbing temple. "Sorry," she mumbled. "You shouldn't have had to see that."

"I'm kind of glad I did," Madge said. "I feel—I feel as if they're a part of you I've never understood before. I mean, I still don't, but..." She bit her lip and looked at her uncertainly, as if trying to decide whether to say something more.

Madge glanced at the clock on the wall. "We still have a couple of hours before the guys pick us up. Why don't I make us some breakfast while you shower?"

Annie allowed herself a small smile. "That would be great."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Madge made them scrambled eggs on toast, and tomatoes with salt, pepper, and fresh basil. "A hangover breakfast for two," she proclaimed wryly as she poured out two cups of peppermint tea.

"I've never really been hung over before," Annie admitted as she sat down at the kitchen table. She was wrapped in a bathrobe, and her long hair was twisted up in a towel.

Madge smirked. "Really? I thought all you globetrotting researchers went on epic drinking binges all the time, always."

Annie snorted. "Yeah, well, remember that wild night out on the town I told you about last year? In Tokyo?"

"I remember," Madge said. "You presented a paper at a conference in the morning, then holed yourself up in a bookstore until nine o'clock at night."

"Not just any bookstore," Annie corrected her. "The Shinjuku Kinokuniya. It had, like, ten floors of books or something."

"You don't even read Japanese."

Annie huffed. "There were plenty of English books, too. Besides, I can read hiragana and katakana well enough. It's the kanji that's hard to learn."

"Nerd."

"Excuse you, who's the one lugging around Old Norse books in her bag?"

Madge playfully flicked a basil leaf in Annie's direction.

"Hey!" Annie protested, picking it up from the table and putting it on her tomato. "Fresh herbs are expensive, you know."

"Everything's expensive in Iceland."

"Well, that's what happens when you're a volcanic island in the middle of the ocean and you have to import basically everything."

Madge lifted the cup to her lips to hide her smile. "Does this mean we're good?"

Annie bit into her toast and carefully tilted her head to the side as she chewed. "Nah."

Madge stuck her tongue out at her.

It was good to have her best friend back.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

"So, do you know when you're leaving for your trip with Gale?" Annie asked quietly, later when they were getting ready.

The question caught Madge off guard. "We, um, haven't had a chance to talk about it. But... soon, probably." She was putting on moisturizer, and she felt her face grow warm under her fingertips. "Are you... okay with it, now?"

"I'm not exactly over the moon," Annie admitted, concentrating on her reflection in the mirror as she put her contacts in. "As you are well aware."

"Am I ever."

"But now, if you mysteriously disappear, at least Haymitch knows where Gale's dad lives. And if neither of them cuts Gale's balls off, Jo will hold him down while I do it myself."

Madge winced. "I'm sure there won't be any need for that."

Annie sat down on the bed and leaned back, putting her weight on her wrists. She eyed Madge warily. "Just... just don't get too attached, all right?"

"What do you mean?"

Annie rolled her eyes. "I've seen the way Gale looks at you. And the way you look back. If he lived anywhere near Seattle I would tell you to have at it, but he doesn't. What happens after this trip? You might never see him again."

"You mean, like you and Finn?" Madge sank down on the bed next to her best friend. "Annie, you were crying out his name last night."

The blood drained from Annie's face. "I was?"

There was a twinge of pain in her heart as Madge nodded. It had all been a dream, but the anguish it caused Annie was far too real. "Yeah. You were telling him... begging him to come home. To come home to you."

"Oh god." Annie buried her face in her hands. "I said that?"

"You did."

"I guess it's time to come clean." Annie gave her a wan smile. "You're not the only one who's been keeping a secret."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

" _You slept with Finnick Odair and didn't tell me?"_

Madge jumped from the bed and started pacing up and down the length of the bedroom.

"It was just once," Annie told her. "I never saw him again after that. Until this week, I mean."

Madge pointed an accusing finger at her best friend. "Because you ran away!"

"I did what I had to do," Annie insisted. "It was going to end sooner or later."

"You don't know that for sure!"

"And that's exactly why I didn't tell you," Annie shot back. "You would have convinced me to keep seeing him."

"Because he's crazy about you!"

"That's not enough, Madge!" There was a tremor in Annie's voice, and her eyes filled with tears. "It'll never be enough. No matter how he feels about me, no matter how I feel about him, that doesn't change anything. We'd never see each other, I'd always be jealous of every single person he comes in contact with... we'd be miserable."

"You sound pretty miserable to me right now."

Annie chose to ignore that. "And these _dreams_ , they just kill me every time. I thought I had a handle on them, but now they're back and I know it's because of _him_."

"What happens in your dreams, Annie?" Madge knelt down in front of Annie and laid her head in her lap. "Tell me."

Annie took a deep breath, and thought for a moment before starting to speak in a measured tone. "Even... even before I met Finn, I had dreams about him. I guess I saw him on TV and in magazines at some point, and he made an impression on me even back then. At first it was like those dreams I had about my brother... I've told you about those."

Madge nodded. "I remember."

"Everything was the same, except I was seeing Finn's face instead of Rafe's," Annie continued. "They were horrible dreams, obviously, but I didn't think much of Finn being there. He and Rafe have the same color hair and eyes, so I assumed my brain was just mixing them up somehow.

"Then, after I met Finn... I started having other dreams. I dreamed... that we were together, and had children." Annie's face reddened. "But in my dreams, he would always leave. He would be away for weeks, even months at a time, with no means of communication. And it _killed_ me. It killed me to wait, not knowing when he'd be back. Not knowing if he'd come back at all."

"Is this why you travel so much?" Madge wondered. "I always thought... it always felt to me like, after Australia, you were suddenly scared of staying in one place for too long."

"I never thought of it that way. I've always wanted to see the world, and I know how lucky I am to have the opportunity to travel. If I'd been born in a different place or time, under different circumstances... I might not be able to. But the way you put it makes sense, too. This way, I'm never the one who's left behind." Annie sighed. "Anyway. In my dreams, I also kept imagining... all these ways Finn could die. Drowning while trying to save someone. Getting stabbed with that stupid trident of his, you know, the one in that famous picture of him." Annie choked back a teary laugh. "One time I dreamed he was mauled by giant lizards."

Madge looked horrified. "Why would you even _think_ that?"

"I was in Australia, okay?" Annie defended herself. "The wildlife there can kill you."

The doorbell rang.

"That's them," Annie said, hurriedly wiping her eyes and reaching for a tissue to blow her nose. She glared at Madge. "Not a word of this to anyone, especially Finn or Gale."

"I promise."

Annie's cheeks puffed out as she exhaled. She patted her hair self-consciously. "How do I look?"

Madge smiled. "Like a model."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

The drive to Jökulsárlón would take them over four hours, Finn said as they piled into the SUV that his company had rented for the occasion.

"When you said we'd do the Blue Lagoon, too, I thought you meant we were going to the beach in Grindavík," Annie remarked. "That's right by the lagoon, and much closer to Reykjavík."

"The view in Jökulsárlón is better, especially for stills," Finn replied. "But this is going to be a relatively quick shoot. My crew's already there; they've been filming the action shots with the local surfers since yesterday. You never know when a good wave is going to come in, so we're getting as much footage as we can. It's mostly the posed stuff that we need models for. Anyway, we can always go to the lagoon tomorrow if there's not enough time, unless..."

Finn trailed off, and Gale made eye contact with him in the rearview mirror. "Well, unless we aren't all free."

Before anyone could bring up the fiasco from last night, Finn plugged his phone into the sound system and pressed play. "Hey, I've got heaps of stuff from the local musos, they're amazing and you should check them out," he said, rapid-fire, all in one breath.

The first track came on, and Finn's musical tastes did not disappoint. "This is the song from the plane," Gale said in recognition. It was a simple melody, just an acoustic guitar and a male voice singing in Icelandic, wistful and plaintive and full of emotion.

"Yeah, they play it on every flight to Iceland," Finn said, pleased that Gale had noticed. "Isn't it awesome?"

Gale nodded in assent and they listened in silence for a while, up until the second verse when Finn and Annie suddenly started singing along at the same time.

Annie's eyes widened when she realized what she was doing, and abruptly stopped.

"Keep going, Annie," Madge encouraged her.

"Yeah, your voice is much better than Finn's," Gale chimed in. He doubted anyone could get angrier at him than Madge's uncle had been last night, so he figured he might as well have fun at Finn's expense. After all, it was Finn's fault Annie found out about their trip before Madge managed to tell her.

Annie smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm flattered, but I don't know all the lyrics by heart. Just a couple of lines here and there."

"It's really impressive that you know any of the lyrics at all," Gale pointed out. "Can you speak Icelandic?"

"Enough to get by. Enough to be polite, order food, that kind of thing. But there's an English version of this song, too, so I know what it means. I explained it to Madge, the first time she heard it."

"What's it about?"

Annie's face softened. "It's about... going home," she said quietly. "He's... tired. And burdened by all these problems that he won't talk about. He's traveling from far away, and he knows it'll take a long time before he's back where he belongs."

"But he's thinking of someone," Finn added, a pensive expression on his face. "His light in the dark. And whenever he's with that someone, whenever he _thinks_ about that someone... he knows."

"Knows what?" Gale echoed, looking from Finn to Annie, then back to Finn again. Even if Finn had never told him about his feelings for Annie, Gale would have picked up on it from the very start, from the moment they saw each other again at the airport. It was exhausting to watch them dancing around each other like this, weaving in and out of each other's orbit, when the very air between them was alive and crackling with energy so intense Gale could practically _see_ it.

Finn looked out the window, twisting the silver bracelet around his wrist. When he finally opened his mouth to speak, the voice that came out was raw, vulnerable. "He knows that he's already home."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

"It's beautiful," Madge breathed when they finally arrived at their destination.

Gale inhaled through his nose, filling his lungs with cold air as he surveyed the scene. Jökulsárlón was vast, expanding in all directions as far as the eye could see. Even though it seemed nearly empty—a while back they'd made a turn and all of a sudden the crowds of tourists just _disappeared_ —it was sensory overload. It was surreal. The brilliant whites and blues of the icebergs and distant glaciers. The sound of the waves crashing into the black sands and rocks of the shore. The feeling that they were at the very ends of the earth.

In fact, Gale was half-expecting someone to come up and tell them that they weren't actually _on_ Earth anymore. Even though he was a true-blue Northerner, and saw more snow in one winter than other people would ever see in a lifetime, he had never seen icebergs or a glacier up close before. He and Katniss were always making vague plans to go and see the glaciers in Alaska, but—like many other things in their now nonexistent relationship—it had never materialized.

But Gale was here now. Looking at the glaciers, in Iceland, on a trip he didn't even pay for. On the threshold of a new chapter in his life, the next level of his career. With his new friends, three of the most intriguing people he had ever met. With Madge.

Madge tugged on the sleeve of his jacket and looked at him with bright eyes. "Isn't it gorgeous?"

"Yeah," Gale agreed. "You are."

He didn't mean to say it—not like that, anyway—but fortunately for him, Madge didn't seem to hear. By then she had turned to Annie and started chattering away, comparing the view to the glaciers in Washington state, Oregon, and northern California.

"Guys, this is Cinna," Finnick said, introducing them to a striking man who looked like a rock star in his short dreads and aviator sunglasses. "My creative director, and the most stylish person I know. He's also our photographer for today, so everyone do exactly as he says."

"I've met you before," Gale realized as he shook Cinna's hand. "You were one of the judges at the charity runway show in Minneapolis. Spring of 2007."

Cinna laughed. "Yes, that's correct. I remember you, too. Gale, wasn't it? You did a great job back then, and I'm sure you'll do well today." For someone who had such a commanding presence, he was incredibly soft-spoken.

The concept of the shoot was simple enough. "You'll each be photographed dressed as Vikings first, then with the Aegir wetsuits and longboards second," Cinna explained. "Then we'll Photoshop the two versions of you together, kind of like a before-and-after shot."

"Pepperidge Farm remembers," Gale quipped. Madge giggled.

Next, Finn introduced them to a petite woman who, in her eye-wateringly bright blue and orange ensemble, looked more like a tropical bird than a human being. "So lovely to meet you all," Effie, his publicist, said smoothly even as she teetered precariously on see-through platform heels. "It's a big, big day!"

"Are those—are those fish in your shoes?" Gale blurted out, staring in bafflement at her feet.

Effie tittered as she daintily popped one foot up behind her. Gale could see that the platforms were filled with blue-tinted water, sparkles, and rather realistic-looking fake clownfish. "They're not real, darling. They're simply for effect. But _so_ marvelous of you to notice."

Finn also introduced them to a trio of well-built, wetsuit-clad men: local surfers, already damp from the morning's surfing. Looking at them, however, Gale wondered why Finn even needed professional models in the first place.

"Gunnar, Einar, and Axel. Three of Iceland's finest." Finn's eyes crinkled at the corners as his grin widened. "Of course, that's not saying much," he added in jest. "There's only, what, twenty surfers in the entire country?"

"Correction, I believe there's as much as twenty-five of us now," Gunnar interjected, running a hand through his shoulder-length brown hair. He winked at Madge, and Gale felt his jaw clench. "It's a population explosion."

"Are you counting Harald? Harald's not an Icelander," Axel argued.

"His parents are Icelanders," Einar said.

"Yeah, but he grew up in Amsterdam. He _lives_ in Amsterdam. He only comes here in the summer."

"Still counts."

While the surfers continued their debate, Finn steered Gale and the girls toward the costume, hair, and makeup tent. "Controversial topic, that one," he informed them. "Best not to get mixed up in it."

Gale groaned when he saw Finn's trademark trident leaning against a clothes rack. "Really, Finn? Did the Vikings even use tridents?"

"Any seafaring and fishing culture would have a big fork of some sort," Finn noted, picking it up and striking the pose that had earned him the nickname "god of the sea" in his breakout magazine cover years ago. "Besides, remember what Wiress said last night? My last name is literally Viking for _spear_."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Gale's costume was a long-sleeved, woolen tunic, with matching pants and leather armor that someone had previously and rather enthusiastically covered in dirt and fake blood. "Where'd you get this stuff?"

"I have my connections," Finn said modestly. "They're used costumes from TV shows, historical reenactments, LARPers."

"You should've gotten a Viking ship, too."

Finn scowled. "My budget and my charm can only go so far."

Hair and makeup took less than five minutes, with the prep team unanimously agreeing that Gale was "camera ready" after a quick once-over with a foundation sponge that, as far as he could tell, barely made a difference.

"Finn, your friends are all as beautiful as you are," Octavia gushed. "I would kill for this one's eyelashes."

"Such a shame your lips are so dry, though," Venia observed as she dabbed another coat of lip balm on him. "They're practically peeling in this weather, my goodness."

"I'm sure his girlfriend here doesn't mind," Flavius teased him, from where he was combing out Madge's hair. "I bet he's a great kisser. Isn't he, sweetie?"

Madge blushed furiously.

Where were they _getting_ that idea, anyway?

Gale and Finn were out of the tent before the girls, and Cinna—now sans sunglasses—went over the shot list with them, pointing out the places where he wanted them to stand and telling them what he wanted them to do. "We'll do solo shots first, just looking out toward the water. We'll try a few different variations, get you up on the rocks or by that big block of ice over there on the shore. Then we'll try group shots, see if any gems come out."

Finn went first, and Gale watched in admiration as his friend transformed before his eyes. Gone was the joker, the chatterbox, the lovesick puppy Gale had come to know. No one could deny that Finnick Odair was a professional; an athlete _and_ a model. Looking at Finn now, dressed in muddied, bloodied wool and leather, standing with his trident in his hands, he looked every inch the warrior. Even with his artfully tousled hair, and just enough facial scruff to make him look rugged but not long or thick enough to be a full-on Viking beard, the effect was just the right balance of modern and medieval that Cinna was going for.

Cinna had Finn pose against a few different backgrounds, with his trident and without, and a few times with a Viking-style circular shield with the Aegir logo painted on it.

"That's the money," Cinna said, later as he was showing them Finn's roll on the tablet that was wirelessly linked to his camera. "That's what we want. Now you, Gale."

The shield was much heavier than Gale had anticipated, and he immediately regretted his decision to pose with it first. After a few frames his arm began to tire, and it showed.

"Relax your jaw, Gale," Cinna instructed him. "You can narrow your eyes, but don't squint."

Gale had to grimace when he saw his pictures. There were no two ways about it: he looked terrible. His posture was messed up, not to say anything of the constipated expression on his face. How the hell did Finn make all of this look so effortless?

Finn chuckled. "You look like your shit is coming out sideways there, mate."

"This was all your idea, Finn," Gale groused. "I told you I didn't know how to do this sort of thing."

"You're just overthinking it, that's all," Finn shrugged. "This isn't one of those things you can engineer."

"I think we should try having someone in the frame with you," Cinna suggested. "Someone to put you at ease."

"I can do it," Finn volunteered. "Gale and I can be Viking bros."

Gale frowned. The two of them in a picture together? "You'll make me look even worse, if anything."

Just then, Effie's squeal of delight pierced the air. " _Fabulous_ , absolutely fabulous!"

They all turned in the direction of her voice, and Finn grasped the front of Gale's shirt. "Well, if you don't want me in your photos, I think I know just the one."

"Look at you ladies," Cinna complimented Madge and Annie. "I barely recognize you."

"They came in here looking very Ralph Lauren," Effie trilled. "But now they're positively Galliano, don't you think?"

Gale vaguely knew what, or who, Ralph Lauren was, but he had no idea what Galliano meant. Guessing by the way Madge and Annie looked, it probably meant something along the lines of _fucking smoking hot_.

Madge and Annie were dressed in slim-fitting wool tunics and pants, with knee-high boots and corsets made from chainmail and leather that—against all reason—managed to look both sexy _and_ sensible.

And that was just their clothes. Their hair was intricately styled to look traditional and cutting-edge at the same time. Annie's, for example, was parted and tightly braided on the left side to make it look like it had been shaved off. The right side cascaded down almost to her waist in luxurious waves, loose except for smaller braids interwoven with metal chains that glinted in the sunlight. As for Madge, she had several side braids, also accented with chains, and a messy fullness on top that looked almost like a faux hawk. To finish the look, their eyes were rimmed with thick black kohl, smudged and uneven and all the more beguiling because of it.

Madge cautiously touched the top of her head, and Gale noticed that her Mjolnir necklace added the perfect final touch. "I think Flavius went a little crazy with the backcombing. I don't think the Vikings had industrial-strength hair spray at their disposal."

"You look great," Gale told her, when he finally regained the ability to speak. "Really."

"I _feel_ great," Annie pronounced, twirling a spear in her hand. "Give me _all_ the battle scenes!"

Annie charged in Madge's direction, but the blonde gracefully spun around to dodge her attack. "Ballet, bitches," she joked, and the word seemed so foreign coming from Madge that Gale had to smile.

Not to be outdone, Annie lunged into a martial arts pose. "I know kung fu... and a few other Chinese words."

Cinna was taking candids of the entire thing, and before anyone knew what was happening he had herded the girls toward the shore. "Let's shoot Madge and Annie together first, since they're all warmed up and ready to raid," he said with a smile. "Gale, I'll get back to you later."

Madge and Annie went through the poses almost as easily as Finn had done earlier, obediently angling their heads and bodies the way Cinna wanted them to. "Wonderful," Cinna said, visibly satisfied. "You two take direction very well."

"We've always been very good girls," Annie said innocently. Madge burst out laughing, and Effie captured the moment on her phone.

Next, Cinna had Madge and Annie pose by themselves, and while it wasn't as inspired as when they were together, it still blew Gale's first attempt out of the water.

"We look awesome," Annie exclaimed when she saw the photos on Cinna's tablet. "We're freaking badass shieldmaidens." She gave Madge a high five.

"Do couples this time, Cinna," Octavia pleaded. "Everyone loves a little romance."

And of _course_ they had to pair up Finn with Annie, and Gale with Madge. "It's the hair color," Effie said by way of explanation. "Gale and Annie both have dark hair; it's more interesting to mix them up. And there's less of a height difference this way, too."

"All right, _Finn_ ," Einar cheered.

Cinna decided Gale and Madge were up first, since Gale wasn't done with his solos yet. The first few frames were easy enough: just standing beside each other while wielding their weapons.

"Now face each other," Cinna instructed. "Gale, put your hand on her hip—just like that. Now look in each other's eyes."

Even through multiple layers of material, Gale was acutely aware of the curve of Madge's body under his hand. He desperately thought of something, _anything_ to say, hoping that conversation would distract him from the idle fantasies that were sure to follow otherwise. "I have no idea how this is supposed to sell wetsuits and surfboards," he finally said under his breath.

"I know, right?" Madge whispered back.

Cinna edged closer, taking more photos from different angles. "Pretend I'm not here," he said as he clicked away. "Just focus on each other."

Madge was close enough for Gale to breathe in her green tea and citrus scent. _What would she smell like without perfume?_

Gale remembered with a start that it was Madge's ex-boyfriend who had given her that perfume. What was he like? Gale tried to imagine Madge's type, and pictured someone suave and debonair. Someone who knew a thing or two about perfume, wine, and luxury. Someone who would take her to art galleries and Michelin-starred restaurants. None of this budget-airline-hopping around Europe like Gale was proposing; surely he would have his own private jet, ready to take her to dinner in Venice or shopping in Paris at a moment's notice.

"You're tensing up, Gale," Cinna warned him. "I can see it in your jaw."

"It's in your forehead, too." Madge reached up to smooth the furrow in his brow.

And just like that—with just one touch—Gale felt all his worries and doubts melt away.

"That's great, Madge," Cinna commended her. "Keep doing that."

Madge's cheeks turned pink, but she did as Cinna said, tracing the outline of Gale's jaw with her fingertips. Gale unconsciously angled his face slightly so that he was almost nuzzling her hand. His eyes closed despite himself, and for a few moments all he could see were colors and light, green and purple and blue and blinding white, dancing behind his eyelids.

He took one step closer to her, or maybe it was Madge who moved closer to him, until he felt the cool, smooth skin of her forehead on his lips. He dropped the sword he was holding in his other hand, freeing it so that he could circle both arms around her waist.

He opened his eyes and found himself gazing deep into hers, and in that moment there was nothing but him and Madge, in this or any other universe. _You are everything that exists. You are everything that matters._

"Just kiss already," Octavia wailed, breaking the reverie.

Madge jumped back in surprise. A collective groan rose from the crowd, Finn's the loudest of all.

Cinna chuckled. "Don't worry, I got the shot I needed. Good job, Madge. Much, much better, Gale."

The others crowded around Cinna to look at the photos, but Gale touched Madge's elbow to hold her back. "I'm sorry if I—if I made you feel uncomfortable."

Madge shook her head. "It's all right, Gale. Don't worry about it. You were just doing your job."

She excused herself to return to the tent, not even bothering to take a look at their photos. Gale stood rooted to the spot, staring at her retreating back and thinking, _Were you?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, _ATY_!Rafe is alive and kicking. We'll learn more about him when Gale and Madge visit Johanna in Denmark.
> 
> _Muso_ is Aussie slang for "musician". The song is "Heimförin" by Ásgeir Trausti. You can listen to it, along with a playlist I made for Odesta, [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLL-gXYwZ1g8IpO49yz3nUvCLZCZPb54Zt).


	8. Uppgjöf (Surrender)

"God, that was amazing," Finn was saying. "I've never seen anything like it. Fucking _chemistry_ , mate. Everyone's cheesed off at Octavia for ruining the moment."

Gale tuned him out. He didn't need Finn telling him any of this; he'd experienced it firsthand, especially the part about being pissed off at Octavia.

He stared down at his hands, the lines on his palms, the veins on his arms. Just minutes ago he'd been wrapped around Madge, and the memory of it was branded onto his skin. What was it about her? Why was she driving him completely, utterly insane?

More importantly, how was he _ever_ going to survive being alone with her?

"Gale?" Cinna called. "We're ready for your solos."

Finn patted him on the shoulder. "Off you go."

Gale resumed his position in front of the camera, wondering what he could do to _not_ totally fail at this. But Cinna beckoned for him to come closer. "I want to show you something first."

Gale fully expected Cinna to show him the pictures he'd just taken with Madge. He was surprised to see a younger version of himself on the screen, instead.

"I pulled these up from my archives just now," Cinna explained gently. "Have you seen these before?"

"I think so, but it's been a while," Gale said, watching in fascination as Cinna swiped through more old photos. "Damn, these take me back."

He'd been skinnier then, despite a steady diet of pizza, Chinese takeout, Jucy Lucys, beer, and Red Bull. The only time he actually saw fresh vegetables in college was when his mother, or someone else's, cooked for him. Between classes, homework, his part-time job, ice hockey and—his throat began to tighten— _Katniss_ , feeding himself like an adult hadn't been a priority.

Speaking of the devil.

Cinna watched his face carefully as Gale lingered on a photo of him and Katniss backstage at the runway show. She was flashing the peace sign at the camera; he was throwing up the horns. How many photos did Gale have of himself with that exact same hand gesture? He figured he didn't want to know.

"I look really full of myself in these." Gale made a mental note, the next time he talked to Thom or Bristel, to ask: _Why didn't anyone tell me I looked like a fucking smug bastard?_

Cinna laughed. "That's not entirely a bad thing."

"Wow, you didn't even try to deny it," Gale remarked dryly. Clearly, Cinna wasn't from Minnesota.

Gale briefly wondered how the Vikings would react, if they knew their descendants' weapons of choice were lethal doses of forced politeness and passive aggressiveness. From what he'd heard, where Madge and Annie grew up it was pretty much the same way.

"I wanted to show you how confident you were back then," Cinna said with a smile. "You weren't overthinking it, or putting pressure on yourself to do well. You were just having fun with your friends, like Madge and Annie were doing earlier."

"Well, now my friends include _the_ Finnick Odair, so it's a little different this time."

"True," Cinna conceded. "Finn is efficient, and consistent. He knows how to get in the zone, and he can do it faster than anyone else I've ever worked with."

"Maybe he's always in the zone."

"Oh, trust me, he's not. It looks like everything is fun and games to him, but he's the hardest worker in the business, and he takes things very seriously." Cinna paused for a moment, and touched his finger to the screen. "I talked to Katniss recently."

"Katniss?" Gale's forehead wrinkled in confusion. "You're still in touch with Katniss?" This was news to him.

"Her sister Prim followed me on my Facebook fan page years ago," Cinna said. "So I added them both on my personal one. I don't get to hear from them often, but I always enjoy it when I do."

"Oh." Well, that explained it. Posy's words at the airport rang in his ears. _I swear, Gale, you're so medieval._ He knew next to nothing about social media, except that most people—his siblings included—used it a lot. Sometimes, when Posy talked about boys in her class, he would threaten to open an account, but he never actually followed through. The concept itself had never appealed to him. Why would he subject himself to unsolicited baby pictures and the drunken ramblings of half-remembered high school classmates? He wouldn't put up with it in real life; why would he put up with it on the internet?

As far as he could remember, Katniss wasn't too interested in social media either, but apparently she used it enough. It seemed as if the longer Gale knew Katniss, the less he knew _about_ her. What did that have to say about their relationship?

_We used to be good together, Gale. But we've changed, and we're not anymore._

Cinna continued. "And I'm probably stepping out of line here, but... even though I'm sorry that you're no longer together, in a way, I'm also glad."

"I wasn't trying to take advantage of Madge earlier, I swear—"

Cinna held his finger up to silence him. "I know you weren't. It's not that. Look at these photos, Gale. I don't know Katniss very well, and I don't know you at all. But sometimes you can tell when a couple is better off as friends. And sometimes you can tell when friends should be more."

Gale studied the photos in silence. He and Katniss looked happy and completely at ease with each other. The runway show was, what, a year into their relationship? But he had to admit these pictures didn't look much different from the kind that he took with his little sister. Even the one where he was giving Katniss a kiss on the cheek, and her face was scrunched up in mock disgust—it looked like a reenactment of a picture of him and Posy.

He missed Katniss. He was still hurting, even though this trip and the people he had met on it had done a lot to take his mind off that. On the other hand, he felt that he was making real, genuine progress. He wasn't bitter, at least, about what could have been. Not anymore. He was just grieving over a part of his life that had run its course.

Most of all, he missed his best friend. He wished he could pick up the phone and tell Katniss about Finn, about Beetee and the job interview, about this photo shoot and meeting Cinna again, about going off to see Thom and possibly Jo. About Madge.

"Can I see the photos from earlier?" Gale found himself saying. "With me and Madge."

Cinna smiled. "I thought you'd never ask."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Annie poked her head into the tent. "Madge? Are you okay?"

Madge smiled weakly at Annie's reflection in the mirror. "Just a little flustered."

Annie reached out and smoothed down a stray strand of blonde hair that was sticking up from one of Madge's braids. "Don't mess up your hair. Flavius will have a fit."

Madge snorted. "Why? You would think it's more authentic this way."

"I don't know. Wiress did say the Vikings were super vain and cleaner-than-thou."

"Yes, but their priorities would've been slightly different on the battlefield."

Annie pulled up a plastic stool and sat down across from Madge. A little smile danced around the corners of her mouth. "So... that was hot. You and Gale, I mean."

Madge groaned. "What? After all the grief you put me through about not getting too attached?"

"Hey, I still stand by that," Annie defended herself. "But I'm just stating the facts. It was, objectively, hot. I'm a scientist; I have to report on my findings as they are, regardless of my feelings on the matter."

"Gee, thanks."

"Plus, this costume is doing things to my brain. It's making me feel... like a fighter, you know? Like I can take on anyone and anything. Tougher... braver, somehow. More willing to take risks, and more understanding of people who do."

"Are you kidding? You've always been all of those things," Madge said. "You've been traveling around the world, and raising the money to do it, since college. Not a lot of people have the guts to do that alone. You know how to take care of yourself."

"I don't know. I felt like I had to do those things. Like I owed it to myself for some reason. I doubt bravery had anything to do with it."

"I'm sure it does. And I get what you mean about the costume. It's happening to me, too. It makes me feel... alive."

Madge's face burned. _Alive_ wasn't even the half of it. If she had been alone with Gale, who knows what she would have done? She always thought of herself as the kind of person who needed a meaningful relationship before she even started to think about sex, and all of her previous experience had supported that. But she would be lying if she denied she'd been ready to literally jump Gale Hawthorne just then.

 _It's the traveling,_ Madge thought. _Everything about Iceland is new and exciting. The sights, the food, the people, the language. I'm associating the thrill of travel with Gale, and I'm getting carried away._

Those eyes didn't help, either. When Madge first saw Gale at the airport, he reminded her so much of the vision she'd had the day Seneca came out to her. It was as if Madge had summoned Gale into existence out of sheer willpower.

Annie looked at Madge with an amused but sympathetic expression on her face. "You look very conflicted."

"I... I'm hungry," Madge said. Which was true. The shoot was well stocked with hot coffee and bottles of the sparkling water Annie liked, and Finn had asked whether they wanted to eat when they first arrived, but they'd been too excited to do anything but get into costume right away.

"Finn said we would grab a bite before the wetsuit shoot, but maybe we can sneak a snack now. I saw the Icelanders eating crackers and caviar a while ago."

"As you do."

Annie laughed. "It's more common here than in the US. You can get it at gas stations, even." She held out her hand to Madge. "Come on. Let's get back out there."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Gale was doing his shoot, and Finn was on the phone, when Annie and Madge reemerged from the tent.

Finn's face flushed when he saw them coming. He immediately angled his body away and dropped his voice to a lower register, making Annie's hackles rise. Who was he talking to?

She caught bits and pieces of Finn's side of the conversation as they approached. _Yeah, it's going fairly well, actually... The costumes are epic, and Cinna's a genius as per usual... You're going out with the girls tonight? Are you sure you're up for it?_

The affection and concern in his voice made Annie sick to her stomach. What was it Finn had said, the first time he invited them to do the shoot with him? _All my models came down with strep throat at the same time._ Was he talking to one of "his" models, then? How many did he even have?

Annie managed to paste a big smile onto her face by the time Finn turned to them. "How's it going?" he asked them, his hand over the phone.

"We were just wondering if you had some snacks lying around," Annie said brightly, her voice coming out embarrassingly loud and high-pitched.

"Oh, of course. Hang on." Finn twisted away again, and Annie just barely made out the words _I'll call you back later_ and _love you._

Annie's hand balled into a fist. Finn had said those words to her, once. She didn't say it back.

"Easy now," Madge said quietly. "Don't jump to conclusions."

 _It's Cashmere, I know it,_ Annie despaired. Cashmere was a childhood friend of Finn's from the Melbourne board riders club. They both started their professional careers in the same year, and they were both almost instantly inundated with offers to go into modeling and acting full-time. In fact, both of them even guest-starred on Australia's biggest, longest-running soap operas: Finn on _Neighbours_ , and Cashmere on _Home and Away_.

But in the end Finn remained loyal to his sport, starting his own line of surf gear and becoming one of its most visible advocates, though from time to time he would accept a modeling gig or appear in his friends' music videos. As for Cashmere, however, it wasn't long before other, more lucrative opportunities lured her away from surfing permanently. Last Annie heard, she had recently gotten her wings at the Victoria's Secret fashion show.

Annie had met Cashmere exactly once before, and she had everything Annie didn't: legs for days, unbridled sex appeal, the ability to hold a tan for more than a week. Long story short, she was perfect for Finn. _Oh my god, if it's Cashmere, I'm going to scream. I'm going to scream, I'm going to cry, I'm going to lock myself up in the apartment for the rest of the year._ Who was Annie kidding? This "just friends" thing with Finn would never work. She knew they couldn't be together, but it would kill her if he found someone else. And it looked like he already had.

Finn conferred with Effie for a moment, and came back with two containers of strawberry _skyr_. "Effie's assistant already went out to get our food, and the guys ate all the crackers," he informed them. "But you can have some of this while we're waiting. I was saving it for dessert—I know how much you liked the _skyr_ mousse from the restaurant last night."

"How sweet of you to remember things from the past twenty-four hours," Annie replied, a little more sarcastically than she had intended.

"Thank you, Finn," Madge said politely, shifting her weight from one foot to the other and bumping into Annie on purpose.

Finn gave them an odd look. "No worries."

His attention was diverted by Gale walking up to them. "Well, I'm all done," Gale said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Oh, yeah? How was it?" Finn asked.

"Pretty good. Cinna talked me through it." Gale jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Finn, Annie, you're up next."

"Knock 'em dead," Madge called after Annie as she walked away.

 _Oh, I will._ Annie stomped off resolutely toward Cinna, feeling the satisfying crunch of the rocks and the sand under her Viking costume boots. _When I'm through, Finnick Odair won't know what hit him._

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

In the year and a half that he'd known her in Australia, Finn had seen many different sides to Annie Cresta. Suited up in her scuba gear to collect specimens. Pulling all-nighters in the lab with her glasses sitting crookedly on her face, her hair haphazardly swooped up and held in place with a Biro. In a swimming cap and a sensible navy blue bathing suit, volunteering to help arthritis patients at the local physiotherapy pool.

He'd seen her sick, her nose red and raw, shivering underneath her doona. He'd been in town the first time she had fallen ill away from home, and even though they weren't even proper friends yet at the time, he had brought her chicken soup and ginger beer because she was too weak to do anything for herself.

And once—just once—he'd seen the last of the walls she had carefully built around herself come crashing down.

But he had never seen her like this.

"Looking fierce, Annie," Venia shouted from the sidelines, shaping her hands like a megaphone around her mouth.

 _Fierce_ was an understatement. From where he stood, right beside Annie but not touching her in any way, Finn could practically hear her body humming with energy. Cinna lavished praise on her as she flowed from one pose to another, using her spear as if it were an extension of her arm. Nobody watching her would have ever suspected that it was her first time.

Cinna decided on a different tack after Gale and Madge's shoot, and instructed Finn to stand behind Annie with his hands resting lightly on her shoulders.

"Shoulders?" Axel whined.

"Aw, you're not going to let Gale show you up, are you, Finn?" Gunnar called.

"Don't mind them," Finn said to Annie under his breath.

"Oh, I don't," Annie responded easily, turning her head so she could look at him. Her eyes burned into his, hard and glittering, like emeralds in the sun. "I think they have a point, actually."

Annie reached up and, in one smooth movement, brought his hands down from her shoulders and laid them flat on her stomach.

His heart lurched forward in his chest.

"Just like old times," she whispered. "Remember?"

He dipped his head and touched his lips to her shoulder to hide the blood rushing to his face. The crowd went wild. "Yeah."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

 

December 2011

Brisbane

 

_Other men—lesser men—preferred an explosive release, all sound and fury, the kind of finish you saw in the movies. Not Finnick Odair. He was the kind of man who did things right or not at all. He understood that maximizing pleasure was both a science and an art; his expertise derived from experience and intuition, two things he possessed in spades. With his nimble fingers and precise angles, he rocked back and forth slowly and steadily, his senses keenly attuned to the pressure building within._

_When it was over, he eased out with a soft hiss, swelling with pride at yet another job well done._

" _And_ that _," he told Annie, with a self-satisfied smirk on his face, "is the correct way to uncork champagne."_

_Annie rolled her eyes at him as she held out her flute. "Shut up and pour."_

" _That's not how a highly educated person such as yourself should talk the week before her graduation," he reprimanded her as he filled her flute. "You should set a better example for humble folk like me."_

" _Please," she scoffed. "You have to be smart to even drop out of Melbourne Uni."_

" _Ah, stop it, you're making me blush." He poured champagne for himself and raised his flute in the air. "A toast. To the master."_

_Annie laughed. "Well, if you win in Oahu, you'll be a master, too."_

" _Joke's on you, because I already won two years in a row. So, technically, I got my master's before you."_

_They clinked glasses and took a sip before sitting back on the couch and putting their feet up on the coffee table._

" _Popcorn?" she offered, holding up the bowl._

_He opened his mouth wide and she shoveled a handful in._

" _Are you sure this is a good pairing?" Annie wanted to know. "Popcorn and champagne?"_

" _It's not for posh wankers, but my sommelier friend swears by it," Finn assured her, letting the bubbles tickle his nose before he took another sip._

" _Sounds like an oxymoron."_

" _Who're you calling an oxymoron?"_

_Annie giggled and reached for the remote to start the movie._

" _This is the life," Finn said. "Champagne, popcorn,_ Monty Python _, and thou."_

" _Always so poetic."_

_Finn's face grew serious. "I just wish I didn't have to fly out tomorrow. I really want to be here for your graduation next week."_

" _But if you don't leave for Hawaii soon, you won't be able to work off your jet lag before the competition."_

" _You'll be here when I get back, right? Your flight home isn't until next month?"_

_She bit her lip and nodded mutely._

" _Good, because I really want to—"_

_Annie surged forward, silencing him with a kiss._

_It wasn't their first kiss. No, their first kiss was a disaster, a clumsy attempt on his part six months ago that was so bad she didn't talk to him until after he came back from California. In the end, they resumed their friendship by pretending the kiss never happened, and since then he hadn't dared to try again._

_But now_ she _was kissing_ him _, her lips tugging at his with an urgency that blindsided him. He sat up straighter so he could pull her closer, tasting the sweet effervescence of the champagne on her tongue. When she twisted around to take their flutes and set them aside on the coffee table, her shirt edged up just enough to reveal a sliver of porcelain skin, and without thinking he reached out and touched it, drawing shapes on her with his thumb. Circles. Loops. Figure eights. Infinity._

_Annie let out a soft gasp at the contact, and before he knew what was happening she was straddling him, one knee on either side of his thighs, her body pressing insistently against his. She smelled sweet, like honey, like the wattles that flowered in the spring, but underneath the champagne she tasted like saltwater, sharp and unfathomably deep. Like the sea._

_Finn felt himself stiffen and strain against his jeans._

_She knew him better than anyone else by now, but still he didn't want to risk her misunderstanding, didn't want her to think they were turning into friends with benefits. He wanted them to be so much more, and he was in this for the long haul. He had to tell her before he lost his chance._

" _I love you, Annie."_

 _And he did. He was crazy about this girl, everything she did, everything about her. He spent his life trying to be everything for everyone, but when he was around her, he could just be_ himself _. In fact, if it were possible to be more than one hundred percent himself, that was the way she made him feel. As if she had unlocked some part of his identity he didn't even know existed. Finnick Odair had never given much thought to the concept of soulmates, but holding her in his arms right then, he knew for certain he had found his. He would follow Annika Cresta to the ends of the earth. He would follow her until the end of time._

" _Don't say it," Annie breathed, winding her arms around his neck, her fingers finding their way into his hair. "Show it."_

_Her words, and the way she was nibbling at his ear, made something snap inside him. She let out a squeak when he rose from the couch, taking her with him as if she weighed nothing at all. She clung to him, her legs tightening around his waist as his arms held her up by her thighs. He carried her up the stairs to the bedroom, his hands only leaving her body just long enough to flick the light on._

_Annie had never been in his room before, and she giggled when she saw the mirror that ran along the entire length and width of the doors of his massive built-in wardrobe. "You're such a preener, Finn. Do you ever get lost in your own reflection?"_

_Finn took that as a signal to deposit her right in front of the mirror. "No," he said huskily, standing behind her and placing his hands on her shoulders. "But I wouldn't mind getting lost in yours."_

_Annie watched, captivated, as he pushed her hair to one side and brushed his lips along her throat. He nudged the scoop neck of her shirt down, down, pressing reverent kisses on her exposed shoulder. He slid his hands down her arms and across her warm belly, lifting the hem of her shirt so they could see the contrast of his tanned hands against her milk-and-roses coloring._

_He undressed her carefully, methodically, putting his lips to each newly bare expanse of skin. The moles on her upper chest. The dip of her waist. The dimples on her lower back._

" _May I?" he asked softly, running his finger underneath the strap of her bra._

_Annie gazed up at him with those soulful eyes, a light sheen of sweat on her upper lip and on the bridge of her nose. Her lips were parted, so innocent and yet so sensuous, but she didn't speak. Instead, she nodded and swallowed at the same time, the tendons in her neck standing out as she did, the hollow above her collarbone deepening to reveal the pulse quickening under the skin._

_It was, without a doubt, the single most erotic thing he had ever seen._

_He wanted to press her back against the mirror and take her standing up right then and there, but Finn ignored the impulse, concentrating on sliding the straps off one shoulder and then the other. Annie moaned, her shoulders rounding forward to help him, trembling under his touch as he gently eased her soft breasts out of the cups and cradled them in his callused hands. Her head lolled back when he bent down and wrapped his lips around one nipple, savoring the feel of it in his mouth, using his tongue to trace a spiral outward from the center._

_He let her pull his shirt over his head, but when her fingers scrabbled at his waistband he reached a hand out to stop her. "Not yet," he whispered. "We have all night."_

" _Okay," she agreed, bringing her hands back up to his head, her eyelids fluttering shut as he put his mouth on her once again._

_He did what she asked: he made her feel his love, he made the night count. But even the most passionate of nights had to give way to the dawn, and at daybreak they stood together on his balcony, Finn in his pyjama bottoms and Annie wearing the matching top, watching with sinking hearts as the sun rose over the horizon._

_He sighed into her hair. "I miss you already."_

_She buried her face in his chest. "So do I."_

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

By the end of Finn and Annie's Viking shoot, they were draped in a fishing net, their faces only inches apart. Venia had firmly clamped her hand over Octavia's mouth in case she ruined the moment a second time. But it had stopped there, and the crowd came away feeling as if they had just witnessed a chess game: strategy, provocation, neither wanting to be the one to overstep a boundary, but both goading the other to do just that.

The onlookers' frustration at the second non-kiss of the day was quickly mollified by the arrival of the food. Soon, everyone was digging into steaming bowls of traditional fish stew served with buttered potatoes, rye bread, and lemon.

The Icelanders were especially enthusiastic, and Axel swore loudly when Einar speared one of his potatoes from his plate.

"What does that mean?" Madge asked, her ears perking up at the unfamiliar word.

" _Drullusokkur_?" Axel repeated. "It means—"

"A toilet plunger," Gunnar filled in. "One of our milder curse words, believe it or not."

Effie clucked in distaste from the other table where she was reviewing the day's progress with Cinna and Finn. "Manners!"

But Effie was quickly overruled. "Teach us more," Venia requested, leaning forward.

"Are you sure?" Einar grinned. "Some of them are very... specific. And probably not suited for sharing over a meal."

"Try me," Gale said. He was always up for new ways to insult his friends, and Rory when their mother wasn't listening.

"It'll be educational, too," Madge added, from where she was seated next to Gale. On Madge's other side, Annie sat quietly, taking small bites and pushing potatoes from one side of her plate to the other.

The others nodded in agreement. At the other table, Effie made a big show of putting headphones on to watch some of the behind-the-scenes video footage.

Einar chewed thoughtfully on his bread. "Let's see. There's _hlandbrenndu_. 'May you burn from your own urine.'"

Gale half-laughed, half-choked on his stew, and Madge rubbed his back and made him drink water until he stopped coughing.

" _Kúkalabbi_ ," Axel suggested. "'A poop walking on two legs.' Or _brundþró_. That means something you, uh, ejaculate in."

"There—there seems to be a pattern here," Gale sputtered.

"Anything the Vikings might have used?" Madge asked.

"I think they probably used a lot of the same swears back then," Gunnar speculated. "But my grandfather used to say something that I don't hear much anymore. _Meinfretr_."

"Let me guess," Gale said. "More bodily secretions."

"You got it," the Icelander replied with a chuckle. "It means 'stinkfart'."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

After that instructive meal, it was time for them to change into their wetsuits and get their hair and makeup done for the second half of the shoot. For Madge and Annie, it meant swapping smoky eyes for a dewy, no-makeup look, and their elaborate braids for loose beach waves.

"Are you going to surf later?" Madge asked as Annie helped her into her suit. The zipperless style daunted her at first, but Annie showed her how to put plastic bags on her hands and feet to make it easier to slide in. "You can borrow one of the boards. They've got GoPros attached."

"It looks like fun," Annie replied, checking Madge from head to toe to make sure that the flaps and seams laid flat. "I'd love to take this suit out for a spin."

Finn had boasted about his merchandise at dinner last night, and everyone—especially Annie, Gale, and Beetee—had been impressed by the amount of research and engineering that went into them. "We looked at the challenges of cold water surfing, and addressed each one," Finn had explained.

The first and most basic challenge was warmth. "We studied how the best synthetic down was made, and adapted those processes for our neoprene," Finn had told them. "More air gets blown into the foam during manufacturing, and what you get is a product that's ten percent lighter but twenty percent warmer than the current best in class. Then we pair it with the fastest-drying liner in the business, so you don't freeze when you get out of the water."

Now that Madge was actually wearing it, she could fully appreciate the technology. Besides the high-tech materials, the suits were designed without zippers and had narrower seams "for the ultimate in flexibility and durability", as Finn had put it. The seams also happened to come in fluorescent shades that glowed in the dark, _Tron_ -style; Effie's influence, Madge supposed, but certainly also useful in terms of safety and visibility.

The wetsuit came with matching gloves and boots. It also came with a balaclava, but Cinna said they wouldn't be taking too many pictures with it on.

Madge was putting on her boots when a chorus of wolf whistles came from the direction of the shore. "Hey, hot stuff!" a voice she recognized as belonging to one of the Icelanders yelled.

In a flash, Octavia, Flavius, and Venia were out of the tent and adding their own shrieks and squeals to the din. Madge hopped after them, one of her boots still in her hand.

"Hey, Annie," Madge yelled over her shoulder at her best friend, who had just finished putting her own wetsuit on. "How long did you know Finn for, again?"

"Just under a year and a half," Annie replied, coming over to see what the fuss was all about. Her jaw dropped, and Madge didn't need best friend telepathy to know what she was thinking. There could be only one reaction to the unearthly vision that was Finnick Odair in his skintight wetsuit.

To paraphrase Annie herself, _that_ was hot. Objectively, unequivocally, sizzling hot. "And how many times did you say you slept with him?"

"Madge!" Annie quickly glanced at the prep team, but they were busy drooling and didn't seem to hear. "I told you, it was just once."

"Yeah, about that." Madge's eyes ran up and down Finn's impressive physique. "I need to know exactly how you resisted _that_... for a year and a _half_."

Finn turned, treating them to a view of his muscular ass. "Lord have mercy," Flavius cried, fanning himself.

"Self-control, my dear, self-control." Annie grabbed Madge's face and turned it a few degrees to the right, just in time for Gale to come into range in all his tall, broad-shouldered glory. He jogged up to Finn, looking so unbelievably handsome that it was all Madge could do not to burst into flames. "And trust me, you're going to need a lot of it."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Gale Hawthorne was not a surfer. Hell, he wasn't even much of a swimmer. He preferred his water frozen, like the pond where his father had first taught him to skate and push a puck around, or the rink where he still scrimmaged with Thom and Bristel, years after their glory days of varsity hockey.

As beautiful as Jökulsárlón was, the water there had the audacity to 1) not be frozen, and 2) still be fucking freezing cold regardless. Luckily, Gale didn't have to go into the water; all he had to do was wear a ridiculously tight wetsuit and pose with a surfboard on the shore as if he knew what to do with it.

"How do you hide a boner in this thing?" Gale grumbled to Finn as he glanced down at the wetsuit he was wearing. Fortunately, they had taken turns getting dressed inside the van, instead of changing in the tent with the girls.

Finn raised an eyebrow. "Why do you ask?"

Gale glared at him. Was Finn seriously going to make him say it out loud? "Forget it."

The Icelanders picked up on Gale's discomfort straight away, and responded by mercilessly teasing him even though they were all wearing the exact same thing. Gradually, however, Gale got used to the idea of parading around in something that clung to his junk. In fact, his performance in his solo shoot improved by leaps and bounds when he changed his approach from "WTF am I even doing" to "shamelessly showing off for Madge".

"So," Gale said casually, when Madge took her place next to him for their couples' shoot, "you were totally checking me out just now."

He had never seen Madge turn so red, so fast. "I was _not_!" she objected vehemently.

Gale figured that making light of it would diffuse the tension, but now that he had started teasing her, he couldn't stop. It was far too much fun. "There's no shame in it. You're only human."

Madge whirled around and started hitting him on the chest with her fists.

"Easy, easy!" Gale laughed, grasping her wrists in his hands. "Cinna hasn't even started shooting yet."

Madge looked at him with disdain, but Gale could tell that she was also trying her best not to smile. "You... you..." she began, and for a nanosecond he could practically see the gears turning in her head as she searched for a suitable comeback. But Madge was a quick thinker, and her blue eyes lit up as she seized upon her new favorite word. "You _stinkfart_!"

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

The wetsuits were trickier to photograph than the Viking costumes, and Cinna's assistants were constantly rearranging the softboxes and reflectors to do justice to the textures, colors, and skin tones on display. But soon it was time for the last few shots of the day, and Cinna motioned for Finn to join Annie in front of the camera.

"Ready for round two?" Annie asked him when he resumed his position at her side.

 _We're still playing this game?_ Finn had no idea what had gotten into Annie, but if she was playing, so was he."I went easy on you the first time," he declared. "Prepared to be knocked out."

Annie narrowed her eyes. "Not if I knock you out first."

Cinna took them through most of the same poses they had tried in their Viking shoot, modified to accommodate the longboards they had brought in. Finn made sure to linger on each touch, to make each movement more deliberate, but Annie gave as good as she got. Throughout all of this, he remained painfully aware of the fact that they were being watched, videotaped, and photographed, and Gale's question about the wetsuits lurked in the back of his mind, keeping him from going too far.

It wasn't long, though, before the fishing net was arranged over their shoulders like before. Almost as soon as their bodies were partially obscured from view, he felt Annie's hand—her right hand, the one facing away from the camera—slide down to his ass.

She lifted one eyebrow ever so slightly. "You still got it," she whispered, her breath warm on his lips.

And for the second time in their convoluted history together, Finn threw all caution to the wind. "Yeah," he said, cupping the back of her neck with his hand. "I still do."

It wasn't the awkward, uncoordinated sham of their first kiss, nor did it have the desperate urgency of the second and all that came after. Finn poured his heart into it, all the pain from when he realized Annie had left Australia without saying goodbye, the devastation from knowing she was lost to him and didn't want to be found. _Do you believe me, Annie? Do you believe me now?_

He wanted to hate her. He wanted to be done with her, and forget her, and move on. For as long as he could remember, he'd taken every hit that life had thrown at him, and he'd always come out stronger. Wiser. _Better_. But right now, kissing Annie Cresta and realizing she tasted exactly the same as before, he knew there would be no recovering from this. There would be no recovering from _her_.

It was only when he felt Annie's hot tears on his face that he pulled away. "There," he managed to say, in a voice low enough so the others wouldn't hear. "You got what you wanted. How long will you disappear for this time? One month? Two years? Forever?"

Annie was as white as a sheet, her lips red and swollen. She was so close, he could see the tears clinging to her lashes. Finn tore his gaze away from her and looked at Cinna.

Cinna nodded, his eyes soft and understanding. "That's a wrap."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Annie followed Finn back to the empty tent. "What the fuck was that?" she demanded.

Finn let out a hollow laugh. "It's not so much fun when you're the one being walked out on, is it?"

The tears were flowing freely now, coursing down her face one after the other. " _Fuck you_ , Finnick Odair."

"Maybe you should," he shot back. "Maybe once you get me out of your system— _again_ —you'll stop messing with my head."

The words were like a slap in the face. "That's what you think? That I got you _out of my system_?"

"Why?" he challenged her. "Isn't that what happened?"

It took all of Annie's self-restraint not to scream. "And how am I the one messing with your head? God knows how many girls you're stringing along as we speak. Or have you given them all up for Cashmere?"

Finn stared at her as if she'd sprouted a second head. "What the hell are you talking about?"

The words escaped her mouth before she could stop them. "That phone call, from earlier. Who were you talking to?"

"What phone call?" Finn looked completely befuddled.

"You know what I mean! You—you said _I love you_. To someone. On the phone."

Annie's blood boiled when Finn started to laugh. "You mean Mags?"

"That was Mags?" she repeated, dumbfounded. Mags was Finn's grandmother, the one who took him in when he was a boy, after his mother died and his father threw all their money away gambling. Even after Finn relocated to Queensland for the surf, leaving Mags behind in Melbourne, they stayed as thick as thieves.

Annie had met Mags only once before, but that was enough for her to become completely enamored with Finn's tough, sassy, and devoted grandmother. In fact, the prospect of never seeing Mags again was one of the most difficult things about cutting all her ties to Finn.

"You can check my call history if you want. Her arthritis was acting up, but you know her. She's stubborn. She's going out dancing with the ladies." Finn stepped closer to her, the hint of a roguish smile flickering dangerously across his face. "Annika Cresta, were you jealous of my nanna?"

Annie ignored the question. "If you were really talking to Mags, then why were you acting so secretive and twitchy about it?"

"Because I was telling her about _you_ , you crazy woman, and I didn't want you to overhear."

Annie's shoulders sagged, and Finn reached out to take hold of her arms. "I'm sorry," she said, blinking back a fresh round of tears. "For leaving the way I did. For everything. I was terrified of getting hurt. Your world, your reality... it's so different from mine. I thought it was going to be a matter of time before you left me."

"Annie—" he started to say, but she cut him off.

"I've been selfish, and I'll understand if you never want to see me again. But... don't even think, for one _second_ , that I got you out of my system." Her chin began to quiver. "I will never, _ever_ get you out of my system."

"This is my world, Annie," Finn said, taking her hand and placing it over his chest. His heartbeat was strong, constant, steadfast. "This is my reality. It's you and me. I'll never get _you_ out of _my_ system."

"What about—what about your career?" Annie sniffed, savagely swiping at the dampness on her face. "What about mine? We're both so... transient."

"We'll make it work," he promised, tangling his fingers in hers. "We're both travelers and wanderers. We just need to do it together. I'll do anything to keep you, Annie... I love you."

Annie gazed back up at Finn, at the face that had haunted her dreams for so long. Madge was right: she was miserable, pretending not to care about him. He inspired her; he made her want to take a chance on life. It was useless for her to fight it any longer.

This time, she wasn't going to run. This time, she wasn't going to hide. She wasn't afraid, not anymore.

And this time, she said it back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even though I consulted a few different sources, I do not speak Icelandic myself, so I apologize if I have mangled the language in any way. You are free to call me a stinkfart, or otherwise use any of the choice words that were mentioned today. :)


	9. Samskeyti (Joint, Connection)

From the moment Finn and Annie came out of the tent, Madge could tell that everything had changed. It was clear from their hushed tones and tender glances, from the way they leaned against each other and had their arms wrapped around each other's waists, keeping each other anchored as if at any moment they could float away on zephyrs of pure euphoria.

For all Madge knew, the tent may as well have been a portal to Annie's dreams, to that alternate universe where she and Finn were already married with children. The way they looked at each other now, with a perfect balance of contentment and yearning, it was hard to believe that there could be _any_ reality in which they weren't together like this, _any_ version of themselves that wasn't unquestionably, irrevocably in love with the other.

Finn bent his head to whisper something in Annie's ear, making her giggle and smack the palm of her hand against his stomach. As if on cue, Octavia, Flavius, and Venia sighed like a Greek chorus.

From behind Madge, Gale let out a low whistle. "Would you look at that," he mused, his deep voice sending reverberations up her spine.

And of course, in what seemed to be a recurring theme for that day, it was the Icelanders who had the last word.

"I called it," Gunnar stage-whispered to Einar and Axel. "I told you Finn was going to be the first to crack. Now pay up."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

The time of year, combined with the weather, had conspired to provide Cinna with excellent natural lighting throughout the day. It was well past six o'clock when the shoot wrapped, but the sun was still hanging in the sky at a perfect angle to the horizon, perpetually suspended in the magic hour. Not only that, but they had been fortunate to have just the right amount of cloud cover: enough to render everything in soft focus, enough to avoid the harsh glare and shadows caused by direct sunlight, but not too overcast as to become dreary and gray.

It was too late to make the drive from Jökulsárlón to the Blue Lagoon before it closed, but they still had hours to go before the sun was supposed to set around half past ten, and nobody was in the mood to go home. The obvious alternative was to go into the water. The Icelanders, antsy after hours of milling around and watching the shoot, ran back into the surf the first chance they got, though not before settling a bet they'd made with each other and the crew over who would break the tension first: Finn, Annie, Gale, or Madge.

"There are enough boards for all of us," Finn said to Gale, holding on tightly to Annie's hand all the while. Gale wondered if he ever planned on letting go. "We can teach you."

"Sorry, I think I'll pass," Gale declined. "I'm more of a winter sports kind of guy."

Gale's unwillingness to go into the water was understandable, even expected, but it was Madge's reluctance that nobody had counted on. "I'd rather stay here on the shore, myself," she said, throwing them all for a loop. "The two of you can go ahead without us."

Finn and Annie exchanged glances. "Okay," Annie replied cautiously. Coming from Madge's best friend, Gale couldn't decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. "I guess you should get to know each other better before your trip."

Joined at the hip, Annie and Finn ambled off to get the surfboards. Gale couldn't help noticing the way Annie brushed up right against Madge and pinched her side before walking away.

"Guess they worked things out, huh?" Gale said to Madge, once Finn and Annie were out of earshot. "About time, too."

"They were driving me crazy," Madge agreed. "I love Annie, but she can be very stubborn when she wants to be."

"I'm hoping she'll go easier on me after this," Gale said, sitting down on the sand and folding his long limbs into a more comfortable, cross-legged position. "I could definitely use a break, especially after that thing last night with your uncle."

He reached up and touched her elbow, and Madge responded by arranging herself into a half-lotus pose next to him. She had alluded to ballet earlier that day, and Gale could see it in her posture, her neck long and her back perfectly straight. Graceful yet unassuming, like a swan.

Her delicate features twisted at the mention of last night's unfortunate Skype session. "I'd like to tell you that Uncle Haymitch's bark is worse than his bite, but that's not entirely true."

Gale winced. "I'll bet." He racked his brain for something else to say, and could only come up with: "What kind of a name is Haymitch, anyway?"

Madge laughed. "If you must know, _Gale_ , it's what happens when you want to name your son Hamish, but you also want it to be _unique_. The same goes for Aunt Maysilee. It was supposed to be Melissa, until my grandparents got creative. It worked out for the best, in the end. It was one of the things that she and Uncle Haymitch bonded over when they first met—one of those little signs that convinced them they were made for each other."

"What was your mother's name?" he asked. "Did your grandparents get creative with that, too?"

Madge's smile faltered. Gale's heart dropped like a stone when he remembered he had used the past tense—correctly.

"Her name was Mathilde," she answered quietly. In a matter of seconds, Madge's expression had become unreadable; her face, closed off to him. "How—how did you know?"

This time, Gale had no one but himself to blame for that slip of the tongue. "Annie told Finn," he confessed. "And Finn told me. So that I wouldn't say anything to trigger you. Fat lot of good it did me." He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "I'm... I'm really sorry for your loss, Madge. I never met them, but... I wish I could have done something."

Gale thought about the accident that almost claimed his father and Mr. Everdeen. What would his life have been like, if things had gone the other way? The possibility of losing even one parent made him feel sick to his stomach. Madge had lost both, in one of the most brutal ways possible, in the blink of an eye.

"Thank you," Madge said, her voice so soft that Gale had to move closer just to hear her. "I think about that all the time. Maybe if I'd taken the day off to go with them... maybe if I'd done _anything_ differently, even something completely unrelated and trivial... you know, like a butterfly..." Her breath caught in her throat and she trailed off.

Gale understood. "Like a butterfly," he said, picking up her train of thought where she left off. "Flapping its wings in a hurricane."

Madge pursed her lips and nodded, staring blankly across the water. For one brief moment, Gale saw pain flash across her face—a fleeting twitch of the brows, a slight quiver of the chin—and that one glimpse into the enormity of her sorrow expressed even more to him than if she had broken down in tears. _Does she think she has to be strong and perfectly composed all the time?_ _Or is it because she doesn't want to burden other people with her problems?_

Madge closed her eyes, her lips parted as she breathed in and out. _Inhale._ Gale felt his own world slow down and synchronize with hers. _Exhale._

As graciously as Madge had accepted his fumbling attempt at condolences, Gale knew that no amount of comforting words would change the fact that people she loved were _dead_. As much fun as they were having in Iceland, he knew that she was there to get away. Madge was running, just as much as Gale was, and as devastating as breaking up with Katniss had been, it would never compare to what Madge was going through. Gale could get over Katniss; they could try to rebuild the friendship they'd lost along the way. But the people who raised Madge were gone, forever beyond her reach. She could travel for the rest of her life and still never close the distance between the living and the dead.

Gale was filled with an overwhelming urge to touch her, and this time it wasn't because he wanted to kiss her, to taste her, to see her come undone. In fact, more than ever, he understood Annie's fierce protectiveness, her desire to shield Madge from anything and anyone that could hurt her. He didn't want to touch Madge so much as he wanted to keep her tethered to him. It felt as if her grief was leading her down a path he couldn't follow, but if he held on to her, he could remind her of everyone who cared for her—everyone who wanted her to be happy.

So he did.

It started out as a hand on her back, a simple but hesitant gesture that caused her body to stiffen from the contact. But he worked up the courage to put his arm around her shoulder, and he felt her relax and gravitate toward him until they breached the last few inches of sand that had separated them.

 _This is nice,_ Gale thought as he felt the silk of Madge's hair against the rough stubble on his cheek. _This is real._

He had meant to soothe _her_ , but Gale found that it was a tremendous comfort to him as well. In some ways, it was like when she had touched his face at their Viking shoot earlier in the day. In other ways, however, it was completely different.

The first time, she made him forget; she made his problems magically, but temporarily, disappear. This time, she made him remember. She made him remember how good it felt to just be alive, how thankful he was for his family and friends. They didn't have the easiest life—far from it—but at least they were together. And when Gale thought about it like that, when he stripped his mind of everything but the essentials, he realized just how little power his problems really had over him.

Gale and Madge sat like that for a while, watching the others paddle out to the waves. Beyond Jökulsárlón lay the Norwegian Sea, the Faroe and Shetland islands, the fjords of western Norway. Growing up, overseas travel was a dream Gale never even allowed himself to have. But now, sitting on the shores of Iceland, it felt as if the entire world was at his feet.

Maybe it was Finn and Annie's wanderlust rubbing off on him, or Madge's reassuring warmth at his side making him feel invincible, but suddenly Gale knew he wanted to see it all, explore it all like some kind of modern-day Viking. Just as long as he could do it all with _her_ , this woman who had just come into his life but made him feel as if she should have been there all along.

And maybe Madge could read his mind, because right then she cleared her throat to speak. "We should probably talk about our trip. We, uh, don't have a lot of time left to plan, if we want to make the most of it."

"You're right." Gale felt a cold gust of wind on his neck when Madge lifted her head from his shoulder. She shifted away slightly, not far enough to return to her previous position, but far enough to make him lose his grip on her, far enough to give him a sense of incompleteness without his arm around her. "You're off from work until next Friday, right?"

"Officially, yes. My boss told me to take as much time as I needed, but I don't want to abuse his generosity." Madge ducked her head, but Gale thought he saw her cheeks turn pink. _Why?_ "What about you?"

"It's two weeks for me, too. I'll probably quit soon, but I want to end things at Panem on a positive note. It was good while it lasted."

Unsure what to do with his hands now that Madge had moved away, Gale started to poke and prod at the black sand in front of him. At first he thought he was doing it randomly, aimlessly, but after a while he realized that he had unconsciously drawn the runes from his ring: the symbols for M... A... R... G...

_Who was Margaretha?_

He stopped himself abruptly, sweeping his hand over the sand to erase the shapes. "We can go online later and check how much the flights are going to cost," Gale said quickly. He wondered if Madge had noticed. "We can stay at my buddy Thom's, so at least we don't have to pay for accommodation. Do you know what you want to see in Oslo?"

"The Viking Ship Museum, for sure. And they have a beautiful opera house. I can think of a few other places, but mainly those two. What about Copenhagen?"

"I haven't told Jo yet," Gale admitted. "I wanted to wait until I knew for sure we were going."

"I'm looking forward to seeing her again," Madge shared. "It's been a long time. There's never a dull moment with Jo."

"Don't I know it," Gale acknowledged. "Sounds like your uncle knows it, too."

There was the barest hint of a smile on Madge's lips. "Yeah... she had a tendency to walk around naked."

"Yep, that's Johanna Mason for you." Katniss and Jo's freshman year had been eye-opening, to say the least.

"One time, Uncle Haymitch went to Annie's house to drop something off for her parents," Madge recounted. "I was there, Jo was there... he hit the roof. He freaked _out_. He was like, ' _For god's sake, put some clothes on! What are you, a Swedish exchange student?_ '" She blushed at the memory. "Jo covered up with the Vikings jersey she'd given Rafe. I remember because Uncle Haymitch wasn't very happy about that, either. He's a Seahawks fan through and through."

Gale laughed. "Remind me never to introduce your uncle to my friend Bristel." No amount of lecturing from Vick or their father could dissuade Bristel from walking around wearing a historically inaccurate horned helmet, complete with fake blond braids, during football season.

Gale and Madge fell silent for a moment, watching Finn and Annie in the water. After almost a decade on the pro circuit, Finn was at the top of his game, and to say that Annie was in her element would be an understatement. Together, they were a force of nature, bending the waves to their will.

It was like watching the god and goddess of the sea. Like watching the Norse god Ægir—the god Finn's company was named after—and his wife Rán.

"We should probably fly out sooner rather than later," Madge said. "These two are going to want some privacy."

Gale grimaced. "God, yes." Stiga Tek was only paying for three nights at the hotel, so this morning he'd checked out and moved his things into Finn's room. An extra bed would have been set up by the time they got back tonight.

Whether the long-lost lovers stayed in Finn's hotel room or Annie's apartment, they were going to end up squeezing either Gale or Madge out. Even in Annie's current state of bliss, Gale highly doubted she would let Madge room with him while they were all still in Iceland. The faster Gale and Madge hightailed it out of there, the better.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

 

_Back in Reykjavík_

 

In her spare time, Clove Valkonen fantasized about killing people.

Take, for example, the handsome middle-aged man who was currently engaging her in conversation at the networking dinner: Ecbert König, a chief financial officer from Luxembourg who—for some reason—was soliciting Clove's opinion on a _castle_ that he was looking to purchase in the near future.

"The location is absolutely fantastic," the silver fox of a CFO was saying, waving his glass of wine in the air as he spoke. "But I'm afraid the upkeep will be the death of me."

Clove nodded knowingly, one eyebrow quirking up just enough to simulate a suitable level of amusement, all the while keeping an eye on the wine in case she had to duck out of its trajectory. At the same time, she entertained herself with thoughts of Edgar Allan Poe's _The Cask of Amontillado_. In this day and age, could someone get away with burying a man alive in a wine cellar?

Anyone who made the mistake of reading Clove's mind—or going through her Google search history—could easily be forgiven for thinking that she was some kind of sociopath. But the truth was that, before she came to work for Stiga Tek, Clove Valkonen had been a film student who specialized in psychological thrillers and dreamed of being at the forefront of Nordic _noir_ cinema. She was a little wisp of a thing, barely five foot two in her stockinged feet, but her classmates had always been intimidated by her. It was difficult for them to reconcile the fresh-faced girl with the work that evoked the bleakness of Ingmar Bergman and the primal terror of Alfred Hitchcock.

Of course, anyone who knew Clove back then would also find it difficult to reconcile the girl who used to live in cutoff jean shorts and Karhu running shoes—supplemented with fleece-lined tights and woolen socks in the winter—with the polished young woman whose work wardrobe consisted almost exclusively of little black dresses, silk blouses, pencil skirts, and stilettos. Nowadays, Clove settled for striking fear into the hearts of prospective hires, like that lumbering American giant Gale Hawthorne, and hapless n00bs in the video games she played almost every day.

Clove continued to feign interest in Ecbert König's castle woes, even as she performed a mental calculation of the bricks and mortar required to seal the aforementioned wine cellar. _Or,_ she thought to herself, _I could skip the bricks altogether, make it a high-tech killing-slash-torture chamber, like in_ The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

"Clove?" Ecbert said, a quizzical look on his distinguished face. "I believe you have a phone call."

His words—and the insistent vibrating of her phone from within the cavernous depths of her bag, like a modern version of Poe's _The Tell-tale Heart_ —interrupted Clove's sinister plotting. "Please do excuse me, Ecbert," she said, her voice taking on the sinuous sophistication that she had picked up from her boss. "I'm afraid I have to take this."

The CFO gave her a benevolent wave of his hand. "Of course, of course. I wouldn't be surprised if that's Alma, giving you more work to do from the other side of the restaurant."

Clove laughed throatily as she unhooked her bag from underneath the table and retrieved her phone. "Yes, I wouldn't be surprised, myself."

Looking down at her notifications, however, Clove realized it wasn't Alma Coin. It wasn't even a phone call. It was three messages, received in rapid succession, from the Mumble app she used to chat with her gamer friends.

 

 _ **[From Berserker]** _ **knife**

 _ **[From Berserker]** _ **knife**

 _ **[From Berserker]** _ **kniiiiiife**

 

She hastily tapped out a reply.

 

 _**[From PsychoKnife]** _ **WHAT**

 

The responses came almost instantaneously.

 

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **r u back**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **r2r**

 

 _Am I ready to raid?_ Networking made Clove want to commit murder, for sure. But she doubted Alma Coin would appreciate it. As ruthless as her boss could be at times, that wasn't the kind of hostile takeover Stiga Tek was interested in.

"Ah, a boyfriend, I see," Ecbert surmised, a hint of teasing in his tone. "As beguiling as your CEO may be, I hardly think she's the one making you smile like that."

Despite herself, Clove blushed. "Hardly," she said, employing the tried-and-true strategy of selecting a key word from what he'd just said and echoing it back to him. It had only been a year since she entered the corporate world—or, to be more blunt about it, since she sold out—but Alma was the best mentor she could ever hope for, and Clove's own razor-sharp focus helped keep her head and shoulders above the rest of the beginners in this cutthroat industry.

 

 _ **[From PsychoKnife]** _ **I'm working**

 _**[From PsychoKnife]** _ **ttyl**

 

Berserker wasn't a boyfriend; Clove wasn't even sure Berserker was a _boy_. The subject of real life never really came up, and knowing the stigma against female gamers, she wasn't going to be the first to ask. In places like North America, Clove supposed that voice chat was common enough among gamers that it would be difficult to conceal her gender for very long. But on the European servers, where the wide range of accents and dialects made voice chat a liability instead of an asset, gamers mostly stuck to text chat for coordinating their raids, campaigns, quests, and missions.

All Clove knew about Berserker was that he—or she—was just another summoner that the _League of Legends_ matchmaking engine had paired her with a few months ago. Granted, their playing styles complemented each other's perfectly, to the point that they were now teaming up in _World of Warcraft_ and other games, too. But that was all. Berserker and PsychoKnife were just avatars, online personas that anonymous gamers could lurk behind. That was all they were to each other. That was all they ever would be.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

After three days in Iceland, Clove still couldn't get used to the faint rotten egg smell in the shower.

She knew it was a fact of life on a volcanic island like this; a minor inconvenience, considering how it allowed the country to operate on nearly one hundred percent renewable energy. Coming from Finland, however, Clove was extremely fastidious about anything to do with bathing. And there was nothing like the lingering scent of sulfur in the shower to make her nostalgic for the fragrance of freshly burnt birchwood in the saunas in places like Kuopio, Tampere, and Helsinki.

Then again, she certainly wasn't going to waste the bath tub that she'd specifically asked for when she booked the room three months ago. So when Clove got back to the hotel later that night, she immediately peeled off her constricting clothes and showered off every last trace of makeup and hairstyling product, as well as every last imaginary bit of slimy networking residue. After which, she turned the faucet to its hottest setting, and tried to breathe only through her mouth as she sank into the tub.

Her phone buzzed again. 

 

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **busy**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **?**

 

Normally, Clove avoided all non-essential communication like the plague. Especially after two consecutive days of nearly nonstop networking, she didn't feel like socializing unless she was getting paid to do it. But it had been a while since she last played—she only had her work laptop with her, and her gaming rig was back in Stockholm—and Berserker was too good of an ally to risk losing over a perceived snub.

 

 _**[From PsychoKnife]** _ **Not anymore**

 _**[From PsychoKnife]** _ **What's up?**

 

Clove leaned back in the tub, careful to keep her phone dry as she waited for Berserker to reply. Her long, dark hair, now free from its ever-present ponytail, fanned out in the water around her. 

 

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **just bored**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **game's lame af rn**

 

Clove grinned to herself as she typed.

 

 _ **[From PsychoKnife]** _ **Well, that's because I'm not playing**

 _**[From PsychoKnife]** _ **Obviously**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **lmao i pwn u bitch**

 

For Berserker's sake, Clove truly hoped he thought she was a guy.

  

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **btw that reminds me**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **u going to dreamhack in june?**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **if we compete we'll be UNSTOPPABLE**

 

Clove sat up, the sudden motion causing water to slosh over the edge of the tub. Ordinarily, she considered puddles of water on the bathroom floor a mortal sin, but right now she didn't care.

The Dreamhack computer festival in Sweden was the biggest LAN party in the world, and one of the most important annual events in gaming. She had never been, even though it was held in Jönköping, just a few hours away from Stockholm by train. Why would she? Gaming appealed to her because it was something she could do at home, by herself. Why would she ruin that by interacting face-to-face with _people_?

 

 _**[From PsychoKnife]** _ **Probably not**

 _**[From PsychoKnife]** _ **It's a hassle to go**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **oh come on**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **i know ur a swede like me**

 

Berserker had drawn the wrong conclusion, but he was dangerously close to the mark. Clove knew it was best to let it slide, and in any case it wasn't an unreasonable assumption, with the way the game servers were set up. But it bothered her. She had to ask.

  

 _**[From PsychoKnife]** _ **What makes you think I'm a Swede?**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **u typed skit once**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **instead of shit**

 _**[From PsychoKnife]** _ **The letter** **K is not that far away from H on the keyboard**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **lol u nvr mispell anythng**

 

He had her there. 

 

 _**[From PsychoKnife]** _ **I could have learned that word from anyone**

 _**[From PsychoKnife]** _ **And it means shit in Icelandic too**

 _**[From Berserker]**_ **so**   **ur from iceland?**

 _**[From PsychoKnife]** _ **No**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **then wtf r u**

 _**[From PsychoKnife]** _ **Sorry**

 _**[From PsychoKnife]** _ **You must be at least a level 4 friend to unlock that information**

 

Between Berserker's interrogation and her own determination not to breathe through her nose, Clove was starting to feel light-headed. _What's wrong with you? Just answer the question._

But the answer wasn't as simple as most people would think. True, Clove had grown up in Helsinki, and she traveled on a Finland-issued European Union passport. If she really had to choose, she would say she was a Finn. But she also happened to be adopted, and her biological mother had been Russian.

In the past, this admission tended to make Clove the recipient of pity she didn't want. It made some people, usually Northern Europeans, assume that she had been rescued from an abusive home, or abandoned by a destitute mother. It made other people, usually Eastern Europeans, assume that she had been wrongly taken from a loving but misunderstood family by overly zealous, if not downright racist, social workers.

Both assumptions were wrong. By all accounts, her biological mother was a well-educated, albeit unmarried young woman who had died in a car accident, leaving Clove with her adoring but terminally ill grandmother. _Skit_ happens, and she had accepted that a long time ago.

Whatever misfortune she had started out with, however, it was balanced out by the fortune of ending up with a Finnish couple who was kind, supportive, and generally easygoing. And while Clove wasn't as fluent in Russian as she wanted to be, at least she didn't lose all ties to that part of her heritage. Her adoptive mother had Russian blood, too.

  

 _ **[From Berserker]** _ **fine fine**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **i dont have 2 know**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **was jst thinkng of dreamhack**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **we cld totally dominate it**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **if u were going**

 

Clove breathed a sigh of a relief. A good gaming partner was hard to find. She was glad Berserker wasn't an insensitive brute after all. 

 

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **but its still wierd that u dont want to say**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **i mean**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **whatevr it is**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **its not a big deal**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **its not as if**

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **ur a girl or anythng**

 

Or maybe he was.

 

 _**[From Berserker]** _ **HOLY SHIT**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter comes from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LKMfKNl_mc) by Sigur Rós.
> 
> Like many gamers, Berserker has a hyper-aggressive chat style. I'm guessing everyone is familiar with the lingo, but just in case:
> 
> n00b = newbie
> 
> ttyl = talk to you later
> 
> af = as fuck
> 
> rn = right now
> 
> pwn = own


	10. Forandring (Change)

When Annie suggested that Finn and Gale stay the night at her apartment after the photo shoot, Madge had expected any of three scenarios: A) the boys sleeping in the living room; B) all four of them sleeping in the living room, so that Annie could be with Finn and still keep an eye on Gale; or C) Annie retreating into her bedroom with Finn, but not before threatening Gale with death should he make a move on Madge.

Madge didn't quite expect _this_.

It had been a long day, but Finn and Annie had fallen asleep in each other's arms on the drive back to Reykjavík, and they had woken up as refreshed and energetic as if they'd had an entire night's sleep. And once they realized that Gale and Madge were already looking for flights to Oslo and Copenhagen, they literally cracked their knuckles and took over.

"I don't know what's going on," Gale whispered to Madge as Annie aggressively swept the coffee table with one arm, sending her mail flying to make space for her laptop. "But it's kind of scary."

"Just go with it," Madge advised. "Traveling _is_ their forte, after all."

"Forte?" Gale watched Finn sit himself down next to Annie, wrapping his arms around her waist and nibbling at her ear. "Looks more like fore _play_."

Annie looked up just then, and Madge had to quickly reprogram her face so her best friend wouldn't see her cringe. "Ninety dollars, American, one-way from Reykjavík to Oslo," Annie announced triumphantly. "And eighty dollars from Oslo to Copenhagen. The flights you found earlier were upwards of three hundred dollars for each leg."

"Wow," Gale said, visibly impressed. "How'd you do that?"

"The flight search engines don't always index the low-cost carriers," Annie explained. "But I know all the budget airlines that have routes out of Iceland, so I went straight to their official websites. It also helps to be flexible with your dates—it's usually cheaper to fly in the middle of the week. For the flight to Oslo, I lucked out and found a really good last-minute deal, if you're willing to fly tomorrow."

Madge had traveled with Annie several times before, though this was the first time they had flown outside the US together, and she knew of her best friend's tendencies to sound like a human guidebook. But from the way Finn was looking at Annie, it was as if she had quoted the _Kama Sutra_. "Dear god, I love you so much," he said reverently.

Gale cleared his throat loudly before Finn and Annie could start making out right there in the living room like Gomez and Morticia Addams. "What do you think, Madge?" he asked, raising his voice. "Should we buy these now?"

"Hang on," Finn spoke up, reluctantly tearing his eyes away from Annie. "Why stop there? I have heaps of frequent flyer miles. I can get you free flights on better airlines, if you're keen."

Gale and Madge exchanged glances. "That's an incredibly generous offer," Madge began. "But I don't think we can accept it."

"'S all right," Finn assured her. "I claim most of my own travel as a business expense, anyway. And if it weren't for you and Gale… well." He tightened his arms around Annie, who leaned back against his chest and gave him a contented smile.

"That's exactly why you should keep your miles," Gale told him. "You should save them for yourself, and for Annie. So you can see each other as often as possible."

"Cheers, mate," Finn said, looking surprised and genuinely touched.

Gale turned to Madge. "So, should we do this?"

Madge peered over Annie's shoulder at the screen. "I didn't think we'd fly out so soon. When is your friend expecting us?"

"Anytime this week." Gale pulled his phone out of his pocket. "Let me just text Thom to make sure."

It wasn't long before he received a reply. "We're good," Gale reported. "Thom's roommates are okay with it. But they're all at work until four, so they can't pick us up."

"Easy peasy," Annie said confidently. "Take the train or a bus from Gardermoen Airport, leave your luggage in a locker at Oslo Central, and go exploring downtown until your friends turn up."

"You're doing it again," Finn growled before going in for another kiss.

"Wait!" Annie giggled, fending him off half-heartedly. "We're not done with the itinerary yet. We need to get in touch with Jo."

"You think she's still up?" Madge had never seen Johanna Mason go to bed before three a.m., but that had been years ago, before they had careers and tax returns and enough disposable income to fly around Europe.

Annie double-clicked on the Skype icon on her computer. "There's only one way to find out."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

 

_Earlier that day_

_Copenhagen_

 

"That is _well_ disgustin', Jo."

The melodic lilt of Enobaria's native Jamaica usually softened her south London accent, but this time it gave her voice a hard edge. Her condescending tone bounced off the tiles inside the ladies' room at work, where she was watching—and judging—Johanna as she touched up her makeup.

"I thought you liked this technique." Johanna carefully peeled off the piece of scotch tape she was using as a stencil for her winged eyeliner. "You called it, and I quote, _bloody brilliant_."

Enobaria rolled her eyes. "Don't play innocent with me. You know what I mean."

_Do I ever._

It was Tuesday, and Johanna had seen Darius every day since hooking up with him on Friday. Today, however, they were going to his place for the first time, and she was going to stay the night. The significance of this milestone, and the speed at which they had arrived at it, was not lost on Johanna.

It wasn't lost on her friend and colleague, either. "You've broken your no-repeat policy," Enobaria reminded her, as if she would ever forget. "You're _constantly_ textin' him—with no dick pics to show for it, I might add—"

"Why would I need a photo of something I see often enough?" Johanna wondered aloud.

Only Enobaria would be alarmed at the apparent lack of sexting between a grown man and woman who had met just four days ago. Even if said woman _did_ promptly text Enobaria the morning after, saying _HALP I'VE FALLEN ON THIS GUY'S DICK AND I CAN'T GET UP._

"To share with friends and family, of course! What's the point of pulling a fit lad like that, if he only sends you those ridiculous internet memes and pictures of small animals?" Enobaria shook her head reproachfully, as if baby hedgehogs were singularly responsible for everything that was wrong with the world. "All that, and now you're going over to his? Oh, how the mighty have fallen."

Johanna snorted back a laugh. Enobaria could be such a drama queen sometimes. It was one of the reasons why she was so much fun to be around.

Technically, of course, none of it was _inaccurate_. For all his smoldering at the club on Friday night, the everyday version of Darius Johansen was actually kind of a dork, but that suited Johanna just fine. Things between them could go from silly and light-hearted one moment, to _hot as fucking hell_ the next, and honestly? She wouldn't have it any other way.

"Soon, you'll have embarrassin' nicknames for each other," Enobaria predicted. She paused and glared at Johanna. "Unless you already do."

"Well," Johanna mused as she unscrewed the cap from a tube of mascara, "I did call him SpongeBob NoPants yesterday. It's got a certain ring to it."

Enobaria shuddered. "God, you both have the sense of humor of a nine-year-old. Is this it, Jo? Is he _The One_?" she sneered, holding her hands up and making air quotes with her fingers.

"We're having _fun_ , En. Get off my case. Jesus Christ."

She would never admit it to Enobaria—hell, maybe not even to Katniss—but Darius had been surprisingly candid about his intentions, and she had been surprisingly receptive.

" _I'd like to see more of you, Johanna," he told her over breakfast on Saturday morning, after their first night together._

" _You're going to need an X-ray," she quipped. "Or an MRI."_

" _You know what I mean. Last night, and this morning… I don't know about you, but I thought that was great. The best, actually."_

 _He smiled sheepishly and covered one side of his face with his hand, as if he couldn't believe how forward he was being. When his hazel eye peeked out at her through his fingers, to see how she was reacting to his bold admission, it sent her limbic system into overdrive. She could almost_ feel _parts of her brain lighting up in response to the stimulus. The amygdalae. The hippocampus. The prefrontal cortex. Everything that had to do with memories, emotions, and decisions._

_Like the one she just made._

" _Seeing as we've already done it four times, I'd say the evidence supports your hypothesis. Still…" Johanna bit her lip, unsuccessfully trying to hide her grin. "We should probably keep testing, just in case."_

_And that was how they ended up having sex for the fifth time. On her kitchen table. Tasting of coffee and Danish pastries._

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

On a bike, the Ørestad district of Copenhagen was half an hour away, both from Johanna's laboratory in the city center and from Vesterbro, where she lived a stone's throw from the nightlife. With the flat terrain, a cool breeze tempering the warm sun, and the verdant expanse of the countryside slowly coming into her range of vision, it made for a leisurely ride.

From a bird's eye view, the mixed-use complex where Darius lived looked like the number eight, with homes, offices, and commercial spaces built around two central courtyards. Each unit opened out to its own garden, which in turn opened out to a walking and cycling path that ran up, down, and across the entire structure. It was a ten-storey building all around except for the southwest corner, where the architects had carved out a prominent V-shaped gap. But the gap wasn't there for looks alone: it was perfectly positioned to let in warmth and light from the late afternoon sun, and to provide idyllic vistas of blue skies above and green fields below.

"People were joking that we could use the roof as a ski slope in the winter," Darius said, gesturing toward the moss-covered inclines that served as the "arms" of the V. "But we don't get enough snow."

"God _damn_ ," was all Johanna could say. After a year of working in the Danish capital, she still couldn't get over the feeling that the entire city was a permanent art installation.

Beyond its aesthetic appeal, the building's design also fostered a sense of community, and Johanna felt a little self-conscious when children cheerfully waved at them as they pedaled past. Darius—who was so easygoing and smiled so much that Enobaria had dubbed him the human emoji—waved back.

After a few more minutes of cycling, Darius pointed out his apartment coming up ahead. As he slowed down, he rose out of his seat and lifted his right leg, gradually shifting his weight to the left until he had dismounted in one seamless movement.

"We can bring the bikes in," Darius told her, hefting his bicycle up onto his shoulder as he fished in his pants pocket for the house key. Even though Johanna had seen him naked many, many times before—to the point that being fully clothed in each other's presence seemed like some sort of achievement—the sight of his muscles flexing underneath a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows was an entirely new level of sexy that she wasn't prepared for.

"I haven't done much decorating," Darius warned as he ushered Johanna inside. "But it's clean, and it's home."

"Are you kidding? I love it." The apartment was full of natural light, making it look bigger than it was. The minimalist furniture made efficient use of space, and the wall-mounted bike storage looked like modern art.

"So what's the plan for tonight?" Johanna asked. Yesterday, they had come to a vague agreement to cook dinner together, and to spend some time on her Danish. From experience, Johanna knew the latter would result in either sex or a marathon of the cult comedy series _Drengene fra Angora_ , most likely both.

Darius finished hanging up their bikes and turned back to her. "Well, you mentioned the Christmas dinners you have back in Minneapolis, and how similar they are to Scandinavian food—though, sorry, I cannot accept _rødkål_ made with jelly instead of juice," he teased her as he stepped closer, his hands gravitating to her hips. " _But_ you've never actually had Christmas Eve dinner here, because you flew back to the States last December. So I thought, what if we had a Danish  _juleaften_ right now? Roast duck, potatoes… and of course, your favorite red cabbage, prepared properly for once."

Johanna's mouth practically started watering at the thought. "Yes, please," she said, her own hands automatically reaching up to undo his tie. Danish office wear tended to be on the casual side, but Darius knew she liked ties and was happy to oblige.

"For dessert, we can have traditional rice pudding with cherry sauce," Darius continued, slipping his hand underneath the hem of her asymmetrical tunic. "And wash everything down with all the _gløgg_ you can drink."

Even though Johanna wasn't normally ticklish, the sensation of Darius's fingers climbing up her lumbar vertebrae was driving her wild. But she gave him a noncommittal shrug and kept a straight face. "I prefer beer to wine, actually."

His tie now unknotted and hanging loose around his neck, she tugged on one end to remove it. The silky material made a _thwip_ ping sound as it slipped out from under his collar and fell to the floor.

"I'll make you change your mind," Darius vowed before leaning down for a kiss.

 _You probably would,_ Johanna thought, feeling herself smile against his lips. Enobaria hadn't said so in as many words, but she was right. If there was one thing Darius was good at, it was making Johanna change her mind about everything.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

After dinner, Darius managed to teach Johanna an entire Christmas carol in Danish, and by the end of the night they were singing it in what he claimed was the traditional way: shouting the words at the top of their lungs while running hand in hand from one room to another.

It was manic, it was frenetic, it was totally insane. Johanna blamed the mulled wine.

"It's so fucking _fast_ ," she gasped as they collapsed onto his bed.

"It's more fun to do with a big group of family and friends, and in a bigger house," Darius grinned, pulling her on top of him. "And we were supposed to start by dancing around a Christmas tree. Maybe next time."

"I don't think I pronounced half the syllables in that damned song."

"That means you're doing it right."

Just then, Johanna heard her phone ring. She raised her head and looked around the bedroom before remembering that she had left her things in the living room.

"The Skype ringtone sounds like a robot chewing gum and blowing bubbles," Darius remarked.

"Crap, that's probably Katniss," she said, straightening her elbows into a pushup position. "I forgot to tell her I wouldn't be able to Skype."

"Go on, then," he said, slapping her on the butt right on top of her SpongeBob boyshorts. "I'll be here when you get back."

"Do you—do you want to meet her?" Johanna found herself asking. Although she had shown Darius photos of Katniss and vice versa, she hadn't gotten around to introducing them to each other yet.

And maybe it was the wine, but the smile on his face was making her giddy. "I'd love to," he told her warmly.

When Johanna retrieved her phone, however, it wasn't Katniss Everdeen's Grumpy Cat impression flashing on her caller ID. Instead, it was a name and a face that she hadn't seen in years.

Darius came up behind Johanna just in time to steady her when she stumbled backward, suddenly light-headed. "Maybe there _is_ such a thing as too much gløgg," he joked. "Aren't you going to get that?"

It took a few more seconds before Johanna could speak. "It's not Kat," she rasped as she lowered herself onto the couch. She needed to sit down for this.

Darius joined her on the couch and looked at the phone in her hand. "Who's Annie?"

"She's… my ex-boyfriend's sister."

"Oh." Darius grew quiet. Then: "Are you going to answer?"

"I don't know." Johanna's heart leaped into her throat. What if something happened to Rafe? What if something happened to—

"I can go back to the bedroom if you want," Darius offered. "Give you some privacy."

"No, I—" The words caught in her throat. Unconsciously, she sought out his hand with her own. For once, she didn't want to face this alone. "Stay. Please."

Almost instantly, the feeling of their fingers laced together filled Johanna with something not unlike courage. Darius squeezed her hand and nodded wordlessly.

Johanna answered the phone.

Annie Cresta was every bit as drop-dead gorgeous as Johanna remembered, if not more. "Jo!" she exclaimed, her cheeks rosy. "I was afraid you weren't going to pick up."

"Hey, Annie," Johanna said cautiously. Annie wouldn't look or sound that happy if she had bad news, would she? "What's the occasion?"

"Wait, let me get everyone in the frame." The video feed turned shaky for a moment while Annie fiddled with her computer, and Johanna used that momentary lull in the conversation to turn her phone on its side so the video could change to landscape orientation. "Surprise!"

Of all the things Johanna expected to see, it wasn't this. Annie's best friend Madge Undersee was a given. But they were joined by a _very_ attractive man, very obviously Annie's boyfriend, who was a dead ringer for Finnick Odair, the pro surfer. Last but not the least, the fourth person rounding out their little ensemble was—

"Gale?" Johanna said, confused to find Kat's boyfriend—or, rather, ex-boyfriend—on the screen. "Are you in Seattle?"

"Hey, Jo," Gale said, leaning closer to the webcam. "Funny you should ask. We're in Reykjavík."

"You're in _Iceland?_ " Johanna had a hazy recollection of Katniss saying Gale was going to Europe, but she didn't know when or where. "What are you doing with Annie and Madge in Iceland?"

As the four of them took turns telling the story, Johanna's jaw dropped lower and lower with each new piece of information. _Baggage claim. Job interview. Ph.D. Photo shoot._

Annie's boyfriend _was_ Finnick Odair, after all. His tanned good looks aside, it was his accent that finally convinced Johanna he was the real deal. _Way to go, Annie_.

"This is some _Twilight Zone_ shit, you guys." Johanna shook her head in disbelief.

"Enough about us," Annie said. "How are you? I miss you."

A lump formed in Johanna's throat. When her relationship with Rafe went down in flames, it had hurt too much to stay in touch with Annie beyond the requisite birthday and holiday greetings. Maybe she could make up for it now.

"I miss you, too," Johanna told Annie sincerely. She glanced at Darius and pointed at the screen. _I'll introduce you,_ she mouthed.

 _Okay,_ he mouthed back.

Johanna held her phone at arm's length so Annie and the others could see Darius sitting next to her. "Let me," he said, taking the phone from her. He let go of her hand and put an arm around her waist instead, to steady himself.

"Thanks. Guys, this is Darius," she said, a little awkwardly. For survival reasons, she didn't tell them his last name. "Darius, that's Gale, Madge, Annie, and Finnick—um, Finn."

Darius moved closer to her on the couch and gave the others a wave and a smile. " _Hej_."

Everyone except Finnick looked shocked. "I like your taste in men," the redheaded Australian informed Johanna, a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Finn," Annie scolded her boyfriend. "She hasn't even said… you can't just assume."

"It's okay," Johanna felt compelled to say. "We… we're going out."

" _Going out_ ," Gale echoed, as if the idea of Johanna Mason dating was completely foreign to him.

She scowled. "Yeah. Ever heard of it, Hawthorne?"

Madge intervened. "Nice to meet you, Darius," she said, shooting Gale a scathing look. "You and Johanna look great together."

Gale blushed— _blushed!_ —and looked at Madge with what appeared to be actual hearts in his eyes.

 _Holy shit._ Gale Hawthorne and the Princess of the Pacific Northwest? This was a coupling Johanna wanted to see, and she could say that without any guilt or disloyalty. Katniss and Gale made a great team, but she had never been a hundred percent sold on them romantically. Besides, lately she couldn't get Kat to shut up about that Peeta guy anyway.

 _Gale always did think Madge was cute._ Back in college, the screensaver on Johanna's laptop had been an automated slideshow of all her photos, and there had been several from when she went hiking with Rafe, his sister, and his sister's best friend. Didn't Gale do a double take each time Madge's face came up on the screen? He'd especially liked a picture of her picking strawberries.

 _No,_ a voice in her head disagreed. _That was Thom._

"Dibs on the blonde," Thom had said, more than once.

"In your dreams," Johanna had retorted each time, and for some reason Thom always found that highly amusing.

She groaned inwardly at the memory. _Definitely Thom._

"Are you visiting other places in Europe anytime soon?" Darius asked the group, bringing Johanna out of her reverie.

Gale and Madge looked at each other. Johanna knew chemistry—she was a neurochemist, after all—and what she was seeing between these two was about as textbook as you could get.

Gale answered for them both. "Annie and Finn have to stay here in Reykjavík, but Madge and I are flying out tomorrow to visit Thom in Oslo."

Of _course_ they were. "That should be interesting," Johanna deadpanned.

"Come to Copenhagen," Darius encouraged them. "Johanna and I will be your tour guides. What are you interested in? Nightlife? Food? Architecture?"

"Madge and Gale are really into Vikings," Annie said, elbowing her best friend in the ribs.

"That's perfect," Darius declared. "I studied Old Norse at university."

The astonished silence that followed was so absolute, Johanna could have heard a pin drop.

"Say what?" Gale said, aghast. At his side, Madge had gone pale.

Darius frowned. "I studied… Old Norse?" he repeated uncertainly. "I mostly work on modern languages now, but Old Norse was my specialty."

"The coincidences just keep on coming, don't they?" Annie said dryly.

Finn jumped up and started pacing around the room. "Fate," he shouted, throwing his arms up in the air. " _Fate_!"

"Okay, someone's going to have to catch me up on this," Johanna groused. "Whatever this is."

"It's nothing," Madge hastened to say. "I just have some books in Old Norse that belonged to my grandfather. I brought them to Iceland so I could have them translated, but when I got here… I had second thoughts about asking people I didn't know."

Darius's eyes lit up. "How about me?" he suggested. "I'm not a total stranger. I can only do it in my free time, but I won't charge you anything."

"I _have_ finished scanning them all—I can email the files to you anytime," Madge hedged. "Are you sure? I wouldn't want to impose."

"It's my hobby," Darius assured her. "I wish I could do it more, but there aren't many opportunities. Trust me, I'm more than happy to translate your grandfather's books."

"Wow," Madge said. "This… this is so much better than I could have hoped. Thank you."

"You're Johanna's friend," Darius told her. "You're like family."

"Ooh," Annie said, looking intrigued. "That serious, huh?"

Johanna decided it was time to change the subject. "So," she said. "Madge, Gale. When are you coming down to Copenhagen? And for how long?"

There it was again: that fleeting but intense moment of eye contact, somewhere between a schoolyard crush and senior citizens celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary. "In four days, maybe?" Gale proposed to Madge. "We can spend Wednesday to Saturday in Oslo, then Sunday to next Wednesday in Copenhagen. That'll give us enough time to come back to Reykjavík and hang out with Finn and Annie some more until our flights back to the States."

"Barf," Johanna proclaimed. "Friday and Saturday are the best nights for Copenhagen. Besides, what about Stockholm? I thought your new boss told you to start looking for a place to live already."

"That is true," Gale conceded.

"I'm up for it if you are," Madge said to Gale. "But we might need to spend fewer days in the other cities to make it all fit, and we should double-check which dates have the cheapest flights."

"Look at them, Annie," Finn said, sitting back down next to his girlfriend and wiping an imaginary tear from his eye. "They're learning. They're growing up so fast."

Gale's grin disappeared. "Shit, if we're going to Stockholm, that means I have to get in touch with Clove."

Annie let out a gasp. "Oh my god." She grabbed Madge's arm. "What if you run into Cato? The way things are going, it's practically guaranteed."

"Who's Cato?" Gale frowned.

"That's right," Johanna realized. "That Swedish exchange student you used to have a crush on—wasn't he from Stockholm?"

"No, he was from Gothenburg," Madge said automatically, before turning beet red.

"You remember!" Annie laughed.

"Oi, oi, oi," Finn said sternly. "What's all this, then?"

"It's nothing," Madge protested for the second time in the past ten minutes. Johanna caught her sneaking a glance out of the corner of her eye at a transparently disturbed Gale. "He was just this Swedish guy who interned at Microsoft in Redmond years ago. Really—it's ancient history, and nothing even happened anyway. I thought he was cute, but I didn't make a move and neither did he."

"Typical Swede," Darius chuckled.

Johanna made a face. "You're one to talk. _I_ was the one who asked _you_ to dance."

"Aw, honey." Darius gave her a loud kiss on the cheek. "You remember!"

" _Gross_." Annie sounded disgusted, but she looked delighted. "You've changed."

"Everything changes, Annie," Johanna said.

Annie's expression softened. "Some things never do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last-minute discounts on plane tickets can and do happen, but it's still safer to book well in advance if you can. YMMV (literally), _caveat emptor_ , etc. etc.
> 
> Jo and Darius finally stopped banging long enough to do something plot-worthy. :P He's coming off as a male Mary Sue at the moment, but I promise there's more to these two than fluff and smut. And if you're in the mood for Jorius in District Thirteen, check out my one-shot ["Axe/Avox"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5602759).


	11. Reisen (Journey)

_Reykjavík_

 

All around Gale, the Skype session went on: Annie and Johanna making up for lost time, Finn and Darius united by the unbearable lightness of being ginger.

But as for Gale, he was no longer listening.

In his mind, his friends' voices were fading, the signal-to-noise ratio falling, until there was nothing but electric static in his ears. A low hum of alternating current, amplifying until it reached its crescendo as a distorted shriek of feedback, like Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townshend and Jerry Garcia, the caterwauling guitars Gale and his friends worshipped in their teens.

Cato.

Even though Gale couldn't put a face to the name, just the thought of Cato—whoever he was—taunted him, gnawed at him from the inside out. Even though Madge swore nothing had happened between them, and that her crush on Cato was ancient history, it didn't do anything to keep the bile from rising in Gale's throat. Madge had every right to be attracted to anyone in the world, of course she did, but there was an irrational part of Gale that had already claimed her as his, and the reminder that she _wasn't_ made him want to scream.

It was all Finn's fault. All that talk about fate, and soulmates, when in fact there were seven billion people on the planet at that very moment. Any of them could be a better match for Madge than Gale was, and vice versa. Okay, so maybe once in a while people would inexplicably find themselves thrown together again and again, but not everyone was Finn Odair and Annie Cresta.

 _But,_ Gale thought doggedly, _I've already got her name on my ring._ Madge didn't belong to him, but all this time Gale had been unwittingly wearing her name, branding himself with her name. As if _he_ belonged to _her_. As if he had _always_ been hers.

Surely that counted for something.

Gale found his gaze drifting to Madge's hands, to the long, slender fingers he knew were made for playing piano before she even told him. Madge didn't wear any jewelry except for the Mjolnir pendant around her neck. Was there another ring out there, one that had _his_ name carved into it in Viking runes? And if there was, would it fit her?

 _This is stupid,_ he told himself. _If you want her, then go and get her._ When did Gale Hawthorne ever wait for a sign from the universe to do anything? His destiny was what _he_ made of it. Why not lock Madge down now, before she met some other guy on this trip?

He regretted the thought almost as soon as it came to him. _The fuck, Hawthorne. Why don't you pee on her while you're at it? God fucking damn it. She's not anyone's property, least of all yours._ If his mother knew he was thinking about Madge or anyone else this way… the combined wrath of Annie, Jo, and Madge's uncle Haymitch would be the least of his worries.

Besides, the most important thing to Gale on this trip was Madge's safety. He wanted her to be safe, and _feel_ safe, no matter what. How could she feel safe traveling with someone who was constantly coming on to her?

"Gale?" Madge's voice was soft and soothing and barely above a whisper, but it was the inverse of the pandemonium inside his head, canceling it out completely and replacing it with quiet serenity. "Those tickets won't be available forever. We should get them now, before we miss our chance."

Gale nodded mutely, the turmoil in his mind silenced for now.

That night, Gale couldn't sleep.

Instead he lay awake, thinking of the sound of Madge's voice and how it never failed to reach him. He lay there, brooding over phases and wavelengths and frequencies. It defied all logic, but somehow he knew that wherever Madge Undersee was—whether she was calling to him across a distance of miles, or dimensions of consciousness, or over the centuries—he would always be there to hear.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

The morning of their flight to Oslo was a blur.

Annie had been determined to chaperone Madge until the very end, which meant Finn and Gale ended up sleeping in the living room by themselves. When they woke up a few hours later, the boys stayed long enough to have a bowl of cereal before returning to the hotel to pack up Gale's things. But soon enough, they were back at Annie's with another rented car, and _then_ Madge and Gale were waving goodbye to Annie and Finn at Keflavík International Airport.

Before Madge knew it, she and Gale were alone together, back where it all began.

"This is where we first met," Gale said, as if he could read her mind.

All of a sudden, Madge felt tongue-tied. She had been alone with Gale before, but Annie and Finn had always been somewhere close by, and for some reason that made things easier. If anything, it had made Madge bolder, knowing Annie was keeping an eye on them. If things got awkward, she could always run away and hide behind her best friend.

But now Madge and Gale were on their own, traveling to places neither of them had been. They would be meeting old friends and making new ones soon, but from now on the only constant would be each other. _Anything could happen._ The possibilities were endless, and just thinking about it paralyzed her.

"It feels like so long ago," was all she could say in return. Had it really just been five days?

Gale gave her a crooked smile. "And all because I tried to steal your suitcase."

"That _is_ the Viking way," she acknowledged. "Besides, that was an honest mistake."

His gray eyes clouded over with something like shame. "I shouldn't go around assuming something is mine."

Speaking of their suitcases, neither Gale's nor Madge's were coming along with them on this trip. Since their tickets didn't include the cost of checked baggage, Finn and Annie had loaned them their hiking packs and given them a crash course in flying with just a carry-on. It involved a significant amount of creative folding and rolling when it came to clothes, and a very insignificant amount of anything at all when it came to liquids. When Annie wasn't looking, Madge had decanted some of her Bvlgari perfume into a small plastic bottle to bring along with her. She wasn't with Seneca anymore, but he was still dear to her heart, and it comforted her to wear the fragrance that she associated with his friendship.

As Madge and Gale made their way across the terminal, every now and then she would pause to hitch her pack higher up on her shoulder, falling behind him and allowing other people to cut through the space she had created between them.

Eventually, he stopped to help her. Without a word, he adjusted her hip belt and the strap across her upper chest to properly distribute the load she was carrying. "Better?"

He was careful not to graze her skin or even her clothes, but her imagination was more than happy to fill in the blanks.

Gale looked at her expectantly, and Madge realized she was just standing there gawking at him. "Much better," she answered hastily. "Thank you."

He hesitated for a split second before holding out his hand. "I don't want to get separated again," he said, by way of explanation.

There was a thrill in her veins as she placed her hand in his. "Lead the way."

The feel of his skin, the warmth and roughness of it, was better than anything she could have conjured in a daydream. Holding Gale's hand like this, Madge couldn't remember ever feeling so safe. But at the same time, Madge couldn't shake the feeling that Gale Hawthorne was the biggest risk she was ever going to take.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Even though they were almost three hours early for their flight, there were six other people already at their boarding gate when they arrived.

There was a rack of newspapers in the waiting area. Since it was going to be a long wait before they could board, Madge grabbed the first one in English that she could find. She skimmed over the banner story—a follow-up on the Icelandic financial crisis of 2008—and a review of a documentary about the phallological museum in Reykjavík before a smaller headline caught her eye. _Viking treasure proves legendary kingdom was real._

They found two seats as close to the exit as possible, and it was only when they sat down and shrugged off their packs that Gale let go of her hand.

"My arm's still sore from carrying that shield yesterday," Gale admitted, grimacing as he rotated his shoulder forward and backward experimentally. "I didn't expect a prop to be so heavy."

Madge had tried carrying one of the shields herself, and was relieved when Cinna gave her a sword and an axe instead. "Neither did I. Just imagine what the real thing would've been like."

"Yeah. And to think that was the Vikings' way of life—fighting, sailing, backbreaking labor. I'm never going to complain about doing the dishes again." He flexed his elbow, shaking his wrist and stretching his fingers. "By the way, did you get around to emailing the scans to Darius?"

"I sent them to Johanna this morning, right before you came back from the hotel." Now that they were having a more casual conversation, Madge's nervousness over being alone with Gale was starting to go away. "Good thing, too, because Annie would only let me bring one book. Did you bring yours?"

Gale shook his head. "Finn said he wanted to read it."

"I'm so glad Jo met Darius," Madge mused. "And not just because he can read Old Norse. They seem like a good match. He can keep up with her, at least. Annie approves, and Finn likes him, too." By the end of the night, Finn was alternating between calling Darius "Daz" and "Dazzo", which—as Madge had learned from Annie years ago—was a very Australian way of forming nicknames for friends.

"Yeah. He seems cool." For a second, Gale looked as if he was about to say something else, then decided against it. "Hey, do you mind if I take a nap for a bit?" He sounded tired. "I didn't get much sleep last night, and I'm still a little jet-lagged."

"Oh, go ahead," Madge said immediately. "You should've said so sooner. I'll just sit here and read."

Gale nodded his thanks. He spent a few minutes trying to arrange himself into a comfortable position, but soon his exhaustion won over and he was slumped awkwardly over the chair, unconscious.

Madge could pinpoint the exact moment Gale fell asleep from the way his handsome features relaxed. The lines on his forehead and between his eyebrows disappeared, and the tension in his jaw vanished. It reminded her of how he had reacted to her touch yesterday at the photo shoot, and how they had almost kissed.

 _Remember what Annie said,_ she commanded herself, before her imagination veered into dangerous territory. _Don't get too attached._ At the end of this trip, Madge was going home to Seattle, thousands of miles away from either St. Paul or Stockholm. Thousands of miles away from Gale.

She sighed, a little more loudly than she intended, and resolved to give her full attention to the newspaper. On one hand, she wanted to get to know Gale better—much better. On the other hand, there was no point in getting her hopes up for nothing.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

_OSLO (Reuters)—Archaeologists from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim have recovered an underwater cache of Viking Age artifacts, including what may be the first ever evidence of the existence of a lost Anglo-Saxon kingdom called Panym._

_Speaking at the International Conference on History and Cultural Heritage in Oslo yesterday, lead investigator Twill Tveit revealed that her team found silver and gold coins bearing the name of Panym and the likeness of a mockingjay—a species of songbird found in Europe and North America, and a symbol associated with the elusive kingdom's last known dynasty._

_According to Tveit, it's not surprising that relics from 8th to 11th century England have been found in Scandinavian waters._

" _The hoard could have been booty from a raid or ransom for a kidnapping, but it could also have been a reward for services rendered as mercenaries, payment for a merchant's goods, or even a gift received from a friend or ally," Tveit said._

_If the legends are to be believed, Panym had more reason than most to cultivate an alliance with the Vikings._

" _There are claims that King Peeta, Panym's most beloved ruler, enlisted the aid of Northmen to overthrow his predecessor's regime of widespread corruption, systematic human sacrifice, and cannibalism," Tveit said. "In fact, the mockingjay is thought to be a direct reference to his Norse queen."_

_The discovery is being hailed as nothing short of a breakthrough._

" _Finding Panym is the next best thing to finding Camelot or Atlantis," said Bonnie MacLeod of the University of Northumbria._

_MacLeod believes it is only a matter of time before the ruins of the missing kingdom are found. Her own team is excavating a site in northern England where a chance discovery of medieval artifacts in 1940 went largely unnoticed because of the Second World War. Seventy-four years later, the area has become one of the leading candidates for the location of Panym._

_MacLeod and Tveit are now working together to further explore Panym's links to the Vikings._

" _If the coins had not been stamped with the name of Panym, it's almost certain that the mockingjay would have been identified as one of Odin's ravens," Tveit said. "This begs the question: how many of the ravens and other birds depicted in Viking artifacts unrelated to Odin are actually representations of the mockingjay of Panym?"_

_Another puzzle that they hope to solve is Panym's apparent failure to ascend to the world stage, unlike other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms such as Northumbria, Wessex, Mercia, and East Anglia._

" _By all accounts, King Peeta was a gifted statesman; his alliance with the Vikings could have made Panym a force to be reckoned with," MacLeod said. "Yet, a thousand years later, his legacy has largely disappeared. Why?"_

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

 

_Oslo_

 

Madge couldn't believe it. The words loomed in front of her eyes, a sign as clear as day. If she ever had doubts about going to Oslo with Gale, they were swiftly and thoroughly dispelled after landing at Gardermoen Airport. She stood there, slack-jawed in the middle of the crowd, and in that moment she knew in her heart that Norway was where she was supposed to go—that Norway was where she was supposed to _be_.

"It's just a Starbucks, Madge," Gale complained, looking bored and not a little annoyed.

"Shh," she said, holding a finger to his lips. "It's a Seattle thing. I don't expect you to understand." When she realized what she had done, she quickly pulled away and added, "Don't worry, I just washed my hands."

Gale chuckled. "I wasn't worried."

Madge continued to stare longingly at the familiar green and white logo, all the while inhaling the bittersweet aroma of the coffee that reminded her of home. "I'm just going to see how much a latte costs," she told him. "I'll be right back."

She squared her shoulders and strode forward resolutely, only to make a 180-degree turn before she even reached the counter. "Oh my god," she hissed once she was back within earshot of Gale. "It's seventy-five kroner."

He gaped at her. "Ten _dollars_?"

Madge was close to tears. "I feel so betrayed."

Gale put an arm around her shoulder. "It's just as well. The coffee isn't that good anyway."

She pouted. "Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because it's not working. I get that it's a chain, but it's _my_ chain. You literally just insulted me and my home state."

Gale laughed. "I wasn't trying to insult anyone. I'm just saying, we didn't come all this way to go to Starbucks." He rubbed her upper arm briskly before steering her in the opposite direction. "Come on, let's get out of here."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

As glad as Gale was to finally have Madge all to himself, he couldn't help missing their friends. Finn and Annie had taken care of everything for them back in Reykjavík, from exchanging their US dollars to arranging transportation. In fact, with Annie, Finn, and Beetee all feeding them at one point or another, Gale and Madge had hardly needed to spend any money in Iceland.

Even now, in a way Annie was still feeding them. "Do you want the ham or the egg salad?" Madge asked, pulling out two sandwiches from her pack as they sat waiting for the train that would take them to the city center.

"Man, Annie thinks of everything," Gale said appreciatively. "I'll take the ham, if you don't mind."

"I don't mind at all," Madge said as she handed him a ziplock bag. "Annie's egg salad is amazing."

"We were really spoiled back in Reykjavík," Gale reflected. "Now we have to fend for ourselves."

"Tell me about it." Madge bit into her sandwich, and the expression on her face instantly dissolved into bliss. " _So_ good. Now I feel bad about depriving you of this. Do you want some?"

"No, I'm fine—" Gale started to say, but Madge thrust her sandwich in his face and did a silly little dance until he relented and took a bite. "That _is_ good." Not as good as his mother's, but good in a different way.

Madge beamed at him. "See, I told you so. Her secret ingredient is Kewpie mayo."

He made her take a bite out of his sandwich so they could call it even. "So, do you want to check out the Viking Ship Museum today?"

She chewed thoughtfully and shook her head. "That's not something I want to rush through. We can do museums tomorrow and Friday. Today we should focus on places we can get in and out of easily, so we can meet your friend as soon as he gets off work."

They pored over a complimentary map while finishing their sandwiches. "The luggage lockers are in Oslo Central. We can walk to the opera house from there," Madge said, tracing the route with her fingertip. "Or we can take a tram to Vigeland Park."

Gale took a swig from his water bottle. Finn had given each of them an Aegir-branded bottle with a replaceable filter before they left, as a gift and also for marketing purposes. "Let's do the opera house first. It'll give us a view of the city and we can find our bearings. Then we can just keep walking until we get tired enough to turn back."

There were some crumbs on the corner of Madge's mouth when she looked up at him, and Gale reached out to brush them off with the pad of his thumb. When they left Annie's apartment this morning, he'd promised himself that he wouldn't touch Madge unless he absolutely had to. But now, just a few hours later, Gale was becoming more and more flexible with the definition of "absolutely had to". Madge might not have read anything into their almost-kiss at the photo shoot yesterday, but Gale was definitely giving her plenty to read into now.

Madge's hand flew up to cover his. "Sounds like a plan," she said, and Gale wondered how much he should be reading into those times when _she_ was doing the touching.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Under the afternoon sun, the pristine white marble of the Oslo Opera House gleamed like Arctic ice, the planes of its sloping roof emerging from underneath the turquoise waters of the fjord and rising majestically into the sky.

It took Gale's breath away. It didn't have the raw, savage beauty of nature, like what he had seen at Jökulsárlón. But he was an engineer, and more appreciative than most of the effort that went into artifice: the precise calculations that breathed life into a design, theory transformed into practice, into a tangible, material _thing_ , like this mass of marble, glass, aluminum, and granite. It wasn't so much a building as it was a deconstructed iceberg, calved from the glacier of human achievement, a Valhalla on earth to challenge the gods.

"Fuck me," he said, shaking his head. "Fuck _me_."

Madge's features lit up with a smile. "I thought you were more of an outdoorsy, woodsman-y kind of guy."

"I am. But there's something about manmade things, too. I see this place, and I think of all the work that went into it… all the math, all the physics."

She lifted an eyebrow. "Math?"

"Yeah." He gestured at the opera house with impassioned, sweeping motions of his arms. "The structural integrity, the heating and cooling, the sound system… that's geometry, thermodynamics, computational fluid dynamics, acoustics. Lessons we learned from nature, and are applying the best we can." He realized what he was doing, and let out an embarrassed laugh. "Sorry, I didn't mean to nerd out on you like that."

"There's nothing to be sorry about," Madge reassured him. "It's fascinating when you put it that way. If I had you in high school—I mean, if I'd _met_ you in high school," she clarified hurriedly, "I probably would've liked math a whole lot more."

Gale thought for a moment. If Madge had gone to his high school, would they have been friends? She would've been in Katniss's class, so their paths could have crossed. Then again, Madge also had the kind of polished porcelain perfection that his angst-ridden former self would have raged against on principle. "Nah. You would've hated me in high school." He was glad that Madge had gotten to know him now, after he'd had the chance to grow up a little.

The guided tours weren't free, and since Gale and Madge were still reeling from sticker shock in general, they opted to simply climb up the roof for the time being. The ground was clear of snow, but freezing temperatures at night kept the surface icy and slippery, or at least that was what Gale kept telling himself as he offered his arm to Madge on the way up.

She accepted.

"This was a really good idea to come here first," Madge said once they were at the top, overlooking the city of Oslo. "You can see everything from up here." She pointed down at something in the harbor. "Ooh, look!"

Unlike the smooth lines of the opera house, this was all jagged edges and sharp angles jutting out in all directions. From one angle it looked like a Viking ship covered in ice; from another, like shards of broken sea-green glass. Light filtered through the transparent panes and reflected off the mirrored ones as the structure floated on the Aker river, slowly turning this way and that on the tides. 

Gale squinted. "What _is_ that?"

"It's a sculpture," Madge informed him. "It's inspired by a famous painting—a shipwreck in the North Pole. The sculptor is one of Seneca's favorites. Her name is Monica Bonvicini."

"Who's she?"

"An Italian artist. Her stuff is very modern—she talks a lot about sexuality, control, and power. I think this piece is about nature versus culture."

"Not her," Gale said. "Who's Seneca?"

Now it was self-consciousness, instead of excitement, that was coloring Madge's cheeks. "Oh. She's, um, she's a he." Her face flamed. "He's my ex-boyfriend. Annie mentioned him before. We, um, broke up just before I went to Iceland."

And there it was again: the jealousy that had reared its ugly head last night. "I'm sorry to hear that," Gale replied, trying to sound sympathetic and nonchalant at the same time. So his idle speculation about Madge's type—worldly, sophisticated, artsy—was right after all. "Seneca is the name of an Indian tribe, by the way. Is he by any chance…"

"No," she said, licking her lips. "I don't think so. He said he was named after the ancient Roman philosopher."

"Seneca," he repeated gravely. "They're an Iroquois nation. The Iroquois were historically the enemies of my people, the Ojibwe."

Madge let out a nervous laugh. "It's a good thing he's not, then."

"Oh, I wouldn't be prejudiced against him if he were," he said in a neutral tone. "Of course not. That's all ancient history, as you say. Although I _do_ feel a little prejudiced against him for being dumb enough to let you go."

Gale turned back toward the water, staring stone-faced at the sculpture. First it was Cato; now it was Seneca. Between the two of them, he didn't know who was the bigger threat: the crush that got away, or the ex who was clearly still on Madge's mind. He sincerely hoped none of the men from Madge's past would come back to haunt them on this trip. He didn't know how much more of this he could take.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Although Thom had only known Madeleine Cartwright for a few weeks, he had come to see her as a good colleague, an even better friend, and possibly also his mother. It was Delly who volunteered to house him for the duration of his stay; Delly who kept him from starving on his first day with her backup supply of open-faced ham and cheese sandwiches; Delly who taught him how to wrap his own sandwiches with paper in the time-honored Norwegian tradition of _matpakke_ , or packed lunch.

In return, he thought nothing of showing up at her desk every day, just before four o'clock, with a cup of tea.

" _What's this?" she asked in surprise, the first time he came around. It was always intriguing to hear her talk: not quite Norwegian, but not quite English either. After moving from one country to another as a young girl, Delly sounded like she could be from anywhere in the world. "We're knocking off soon. We can eat at home."_

" _But that means you'd be late for tea," he pointed out. "It's Yorkshire, for your English side. The cardamom bun is for your Norwegian side."_

" _This is lovely, Thom. Thank you," she said, her warm brown eyes shining. She sniffed. "You're quite all right, for a froggy."_

" _I'm not French," he protested with a laugh. "I'm barely even Canadian."_

_She pursed her lips, trying not to smile. "That's not what I heard you say to Lene from Human Resources."_

Before long, they had established their own tradition, and soon Lakshmi was joining them as well. The three of them would happily stay behind for an extra half hour—something that was unheard of at their office, and most other workplaces in Norway—and have tea together before going back to the apartment.

Today, however, was an exception. Not only did Thom have to pick up Gale and his friend from Central station, but Delly had other plans as well.

"I'm helping my brother with his _Russebil_ ," she informed him. Delly had an eighteen-year-old brother who still lived with their parents in the more upscale part of town. "I'll catch up with you lot at home later tonight."

"Russebil?" Thom echoed, confused. He was learning Norwegian, so he thought he recognized the elements of the word, but what on earth was Delly going to do with a Russian car?

Delly frowned. "Oh, I suppose I haven't told you yet. I remember telling Lakshmi and—never mind. You've seriously not heard of Russ season?"

"Oh, _that_." Of course Thom had heard about Russ season. For one thing, he knew that it had nothing to do with Russia. Russ season was when Norwegian students in their last year of upper secondary school engaged in three weeks of crazy dares and nonstop drunken hedonism, while blasting music from the back of vehicles painted to match their brightly colored Russ overalls. Which was all well and good in Thom's opinion, if it wasn't held _before_ their final exams. "I thought it wasn't starting until the end of the month?"

Delly rolled her eyes. "Alfie and his friends were literally going to spend a million kroner to rent a party bus and a sound system, but Dad convinced them to get a van instead. He carried on about English restraint, Jante's Law and Norwegian humility, all of that. Anyway, Dad conveniently remembered that I fixed up a van for _my_ Russebil ages ago, and now it's become this massive family project."

"You fix cars?" Thom said, impressed.

"We all do," Delly said. "It's a Cartwright tradition. I love doing it, and I love my brother, but I hate Russ season. Also, I just had a manicure." She looked down at the perfect ovals of her fingernails and sighed. "Alfie had to bribe me with tickets to the Inferno Festival this week."

Thom's mouth hung open. "You like heavy metal?"

Now it was Delly's turn to look surprised. "Do you?"

"Hell yeah," he grinned, throwing up the horns. "Dimmu Borgir, Amon Amarth, Rammstein… Europe has the best bands. Are you telling me we could've been rocking out at home all this time? How come I've never heard your music?"

"This brilliant little invention called headphones," she answered, a smile playing on her lips. "Let me see if I can wring a few more tickets out of Alfie. I'd rather go with you than a group of teenagers in their Russ year. Do your friends like metal, too?"

"Gale doesn't like it as much as I do," Thom said. "Don't know about the other guy. But I'm up for it, for sure." He shook his head, incredulous. "I would never have guessed we were into the same stuff. Your room is so… _pink_." At work, Delly was the picture of a professional mechanical engineer in her immaculately tailored, structured pantsuits, but at home she was almost aggressively feminine. He wondered if she would ever cease to amaze him.

"Liking pink and liking metal are not mutually exclusive," Delly averred. "But I do confess to dyeing my hair black a few years ago. It did _not_ do my coloring any favors."

"Aw, you'd look cute no matter what," he said loyally.

Thom reached out to tweak her nose, but Delly dodged his hand. " _Don't_ ," she warned him, laughing. "Between my English side and my Norwegian side, I'll probably never learn how to take a compliment."

"But it's the truth!" he objected.

"What's the truth?" Lakshmi wanted to know as she walked up to them.

Delly blushed. "Nothing, just Thomas being ridiculous as per usual," she told their roommate. She turned to Thom and added, "Let's hope your friend Gale isn't as big of a nitwit as you are."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been putting off mentioning Gale's (and Katniss's) family background again because it's the one thing I'm most afraid of getting wrong, and I was trying to buy more time while I continued my research. But it will be a big part of this story, especially the Everlark arc.


	12. Hindring (Hindrance)

_Reykjavík_

 

Annie awoke to the sight of Finnick Odair naked on the hotel room bed, his smoothly muscled chest rising and falling with the even breaths of sleep.

She rolled over onto her stomach and buried her face into the pillow as a wave of realization washed over her. For once, it hadn't been a dream.

_Oh my god._

She dove deeper and deeper under the covers with each new memory that floated to the surface. Did she really—

" _I reckon we're finally alone," Finn said lightly, one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the back of Annie's seat, once they dropped Madge and Gale off in front of the airport._

" _Yes, we are." Annie bit her lower lip, gathering courage for what she was about to say. "Baby?"_

" _Yes, babe?"_

_She leaned over the stick shift to kiss him, but at the last moment she veered off course and blew gently into his ear. "I'm not wearing any underwear today."_

Annie raised her head to look at Finn just as he was opening one sleepy eye. "G'morning, sunshine," he murmured, his drawl even more languid than usual.

She glanced at the clock on the wall. "It's four in the afternoon, silly."

"Feels like a new day." Finn reached out and gently stroked her cheek. "It _is_ a new day, for you and me."

Annie let him loop an arm around her waist and pull her close. "I can't believe we did it in the car park at the airport."

It was just a quickie in the back seat of the rental, but it was enough to sate them until they could get to Finn's hotel and do it again in the bath tub. If anything, it was a small miracle that they managed to hold out for as long as they did.

"And whose idea was that, hey?" he smirked. "I wasn't the one who left her knickers at home on purpose."

A blush crept up her cheeks. " _I_ wasn't the one who came prepared with an entire box of condoms."

"Ah well, can't blame me for being optimistic." Finn chuckled. "You should've seen the bloke who sold them to me this morning. He took one look at me and Gale and asked if he could come to the party."

 _Gale._ "Shit, that reminds me," Annie said, wresting herself free of his grip and jumping out of bed. "I should check in on Madge."

"Don't worry, babe," Finn said, sitting up and watching her rifle through the contents of her purse. "Madge is in good hands."

"Not exactly what I want to hear right now, babe," Annie responded. She found her phone in the pocket of her dress, which was strewn haphazardly on the floor along with Finn's clothes. There was one text message from Madge, saying that they had landed safely in Oslo and that she would try to Skype tonight, but otherwise—nothing.

Annie snapped her head up to glare at her boyfriend. "Wait, did Gale buy condoms, too?"

Finn hesitated. "Is there a right answer to that question?"

"Good point." So what if Gale bought condoms? Was that really any worse than him _not_ buying condoms? And, come to think of it, what would be worse—Madge sleeping with Gale and getting hurt when they had to go their separate ways, or Madge _not_ sleeping with Gale, and getting hurt anyway? What if Gale hooked up with someone else? What if he messed things up enough to drive Madge into someone else's arms, some rando who didn't come pre-vetted by Johanna Mason, and whose dad wasn't a frat brother of Madge's uncle Haymitch?

"Calm down, babe," Finn said soothingly, as Annie felt herself filling with righteous anger.

"I'm picturing half a dozen scenarios, and they all end with me killing Gale." Annie groaned. "This is all my fault. Why did I let her go on that trip?"

"Hey." Finn climbed out of bed and wrapped his arms around her. "Madge made her own decision. The only thing you could do was give her advice, and you did. Anyone can see that you have her best interests at heart."

"I guess," Annie conceded, letting herself melt into his embrace. She and Finn had done what they could. The rest was up to Madge and Gale.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

 

_Oslo_

 

Madge stared at her phone, her thumb hovering over Annie's name in her contacts list. _Should I call her?_ She wasn't in the mood to hear her best friend say, "I told you so," but then again she could really use some third-party input right about now.

Trying to figure Gale out was exhausting. He liked her, she knew he did; why would he ask her to travel with him if he didn't? A trip to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden was literally the first date to end all first dates. Besides, there was no denying the sparks flying between them yesterday at the photo shoot. Several times today, she had wondered if she should just go ahead and kiss him already.

Then Madge foolishly brought up her ex-boyfriend, and she saw Gale's walls go up before her eyes. Sure, on the outside he was as courteous, even as chivalrous as ever, but there was a part of him that suddenly became closed off. In the past few days, he'd grown comfortable enough with her that he would tell her little things about himself: the music he liked, the perils of being the oldest of four siblings. Things she cherished because they made her feel as if she knew him. But now it was as if he'd built a moat and an entire medieval fortress around himself, and she didn't know how to open him up again.

At first, seeing Gale so jealous of Seneca was flattering, but now it was mostly annoying. If anything, it was Madge who should be jealous. Didn't Finn tell Annie that Gale was supposed to propose to his girlfriend, the day she broke up with him? What if Madge was just a rebound, a quick European fling for him to jumpstart his triumphant return to the single life?

Madge sighed in frustration. It had been so much easier with Seneca. _In retrospect,_ she thought cynically, _that should've been the first clue._ After twenty-five years, a J.D., and a license to practice law in the state of Washington, Margaret Undersee still didn't know the first thing about men.

 _Be fair, now. It's not like women are an open book._ Gale could be thinking the same about her—that Madge was the one on the rebound. And, in all honesty, wasn't she? After—after losing her _parents_ , and ending things with her first and only serious boyfriend, she had predictably latched on to the first man she'd met overseas.

But he wasn't just any man. He was _Gale_ : intelligent, funny, and clearly devoted to his family. Admittedly, the first thing she noticed about him was how ruggedly handsome he was. Even after seeing him in a skintight wetsuit yesterday, Madge still preferred the way he looked now, in a plaid flannel shirt and faded jeans. But his looks were just the icing on the cake. Madge often felt that her trip to Europe was an endless parade of gorgeous men—Finn, the Icelanders, Cinna, Darius—but meeting Gale was the closest she had come to meeting the mystery man from her daydreams. One look at Gale Hawthorne, and she was tempted to say, "This is it, he's The One, everyone else can go home."

If only it were that simple.

Things were so awkward now that Madge had extricated herself from the situation the first chance she got. Which was why she was wandering around Oslo Central on the pretense of getting caffeinated, while Gale got their bags from the luggage lockers and waited at the place where his friend said he was going to meet them.

As luck would have it, there was another Starbucks, but Madge willed herself to look away. A tall, professional-looking man strode confidently across her field of vision, past Starbucks and into a place called Deli De Luca. She decided, purely on the basis of his horn-rimmed glasses and perfectly tailored office clothes, that this man probably knew a good place to have a cup of joe.

So she followed.

Her stomach rumbled as her eyes swept over the salads, wraps, and sandwiches on display. _Oh lord, they even have sushi. And soup. And cups of yogurt with granola on top._ At the risk of sounding disloyal, she had to admit the food here looked fresher and more appetizing than the food at Starbucks. Plus, she could actually afford to buy something here.

She took an absentminded step to her right in order to have a better look at the pastries, and ended up bumping into someone's side.

"Oh!" Madge racked her brain for what little Norwegian she had learned from listening to a language podcast on the plane. For the life of her, she couldn't recall what the word was for _sorry_ , if there even was one. So she said the next best thing: " _Unnskyld_." _Excuse me_.

When she heard herself say it, she was surprised at how natural it sounded; how easy it was to force air between her tongue and her palate to form the soft susurration of the second syllable. Maybe she did have Scandinavian blood, after all. Maybe spending time in this part of the world was awakening some latent knowledge of the language in her DNA.

Or, more likely, it was the German she'd learned in the past that was helping her now. Madge belatedly realized that _unnskyld_ sounded very similar to the first half of the Deutsch word _Entschuldigung_ , which made sense since they basically meant the same thing. She made a mental note to ask Darius about the evolution of Old Norse and Germanic languages, once she met him in Copenhagen.

Whether it was genetic memory, or the inherent similarities between modern Norwegian and German—and to some extent even English, now that she thought about it—whatever it was, it seemed to be working in her favor.

In her excitement over mastering a single word of Norwegian, she turned and beamed at the person she'd just collided into.

It was _him_ —the man she'd followed into the deli. Madge hastily looked back down again, her face burning with embarrassment. At this rate, he was going to think she was stalking him.

Fortunately, he didn't seem to mind. In fact, he took it as his cue to start talking to her in Norwegian.

 _So much for being a natural._ Parroting the words from a podcast was one thing; understanding the words as spoken by someone else was much harder. Madge couldn't even tell where one word ended and another began.

"Um," Madge ventured. " _Jeg forstår ikke_. _Jeg… er… ikke norsk."_ _I don't understand. I'm not Norwegian._ For good measure, she added: " _Eller… svensk… eller dansk._ " _Or Swedish, or Danish._

Incredibly, the man segued into speaking French instead. As sexy as it made him sound, Madge figured she would have more luck with Norwegian.

" _Nei_ , _nei_ ," she said, shaking her head apologetically before he could say any more. " _Snakker du engelsk_?" _Do you speak English?_

"Oh! Sorry about that," he responded, switching easily to English. "You said you weren't Scandinavian, but you _look_ European, so I took my chances with French."

"Wow," Madge said, impressed. "What other languages do you speak?"

He laughed. "That's pretty much it, I'm afraid. Anyway, what I was saying just now—I was saying, so many choices, so little time."

The girl behind the counter was looking at them pointedly. Unruffled, Madge's new acquaintance placed his order in Norwegian, pointing at some cinnamon buns as he did so. "It feels wrong that I'm having tea after four, but I need my carbs," he shared in English.

Madge knew that the Swedes had elevated the coffee break to an afternoon ritual called _fika_ ; maybe their neighbors to the west had something similar for tea. She didn't know. Or maybe this guy was observing British customs because he was actually British, although he certainly didn't sound like he was. He sounded like he could be from the US, or possibly Canada—after all, he spoke French, and to Madge's untrained ear he seemed pretty good at it.

Then again, he could also be what she had originally assumed him to be: Norwegian. American media was so pervasive nowadays that people from around the world had no problems picking up all sorts of American accents. Finn, for example, could instantly transform into a California surfer boy or even a Celtics-crazed Bostonian anytime he wanted.

It was Madge's turn to order, so in halting Norwegian she asked for a latte—just one, since Gale had specifically told her not to get him anything. She opened her wallet to count out her kroner.

The man stopped her. "You know what, it's on me."

"No, I couldn't possibly—"

"Please."

"Thank you," Madge said, not knowing how to adequately react to this stranger's generosity. " _Tusen takk_." _A thousand thanks._

" _Ingen årsak_." _You're welcome._

He smiled at her, and for the first time Madge maintained eye contact long enough to get a decent look at him.

That he was good-looking came as no surprise. _Am I even going to meet_ one _unattractive man on this trip? Seriously._ There were enough similarities that Madge couldn't help describing him in relation to Gale: same height, or maybe an inch shorter, she couldn't say for sure. Shoulders a little narrower. Hair, longer than Gale's and not as thick.

But what intrigued Madge the most was his smile. When he smiled, the dimple on his left cheek—or was it a scar?—deepened and lengthened until it took up almost a third of that side of his face. The effect was extraordinary, to say nothing of the way the smile lit up his eyes—

His _eyes_.

They were gray, like Gale's, and gray was a rare enough color that his eyes would have stopped Madge in her tracks on their own. But just then he pulled out his phone, and the bright green and purple glow of the screen illuminated his eyes, his glasses, his entire face.

"I'm off to meet my friend," he said almost regretfully. "But it was nice bumping into you."

"Likewise. And thanks again for the coffee."

He balanced his cup of tea and cinnamon buns in one hand, and tugged on the strap of his leather messenger bag with the other. "Listen, this probably sounds weird because we've only just met and I don't even know your name, but… I would love to take you out for coffee for real."

The invitation caught Madge off guard. "Um…"

"I mean, unless you have a boyfriend or a partner or something—"

"I don't," she replied truthfully. "But, um, I'm traveling with someone, and we only have a few days in Norway. Speaking of which, I should be getting back. I told Gale I wasn't going to take very long."

" _Gale_ ," he repeated incredulously. "Out of curiosity, would that be Gale Hawthorne from Minnesota? About my height, occasionally grouchy, gives off a vibe that the 1980s, 1990s Seattle grunge era never ended?"

"I wasn't aware that it did," Madge said automatically. All of a sudden, it dawned on her just _who_ her new friend was. "Wait, if you know Gale, that means _you're_ —"

He bowed deeply, a lock of dark hair falling over his forehead. "Thom Devereux, at your service."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Gale rehearsed the speech over and over in his mind.

_I was being an ass. I like you a lot, and I guess it just bothered me when you mentioned your ex. But I know it was wrong of me, and I'm sorry. Please don't think you're under any obligation to like me back—I'm not going to hassle you. If you just want to be friends, I'll respect your decision._

It wasn't the way he wanted to tell Madge about his feelings, not by a long shot, but it was simple and straightforward. He hoped she would understand.

Gale glanced down at his watch. It was four-thirty; Thom was supposed to pick them up any moment now. He willed Madge to hurry up and come back with her coffee already so he could apologize and put things back the way they were, while they still had some privacy.

He saw Madge walking toward him, coming into view like a mirage in the desert. Even from this distance, he could see the radiant smile on her face, and he was about to thank the coffee gods for the renewed spring in her step when he realized she wasn't alone.

"Look who I found!" she said proudly, using the full length of both arms to present her companion to Gale.

"Well, I'll be," Gale said, forcing himself to smile back at his roommate from St. Paul, and his oldest friend in the world. "How did this happen?"

"I needed my caffeine fix and so did she." Thom held up a paper cup, looking like the happiest person on earth. " _Et voila_."

 _Oh, hell no._ Thom putting on his French shtick could only mean one thing.

Gale cursed himself. He'd been so preoccupied with Seneca and Cato that he didn't see this coming. Of course, he knew from the moment he met Madge that, physically at least, she was really Thom's type more than his. But he figured that when the time came to introduce them, Thom would pick up on Gale's attraction to Madge and back off. Gale hadn't counted on Madge meeting Thom without him.

Gale also hadn't counted on Thom looking so dapper. "Look at you," he found himself saying. Thom had been farsighted since sixth grade, but he'd always opted for contacts because of all the hockey they played. "What's with the getup?"

"What getup? These are the same clothes I've been wearing to work for years," Thom pointed out. "Delly just sent them to her tailor. Delly's my roommate," he explained to Madge. "She's got a family thing on so she couldn't come, but we'll see her and Lakshmi later tonight."

"Huh." Gale was glad that Thom brought Delly up without being prompted, but he didn't know how to pursue the subject without sounding like he was trying to insinuate something. "Looking forward to meeting them."

"Enough about me," Thom declared. "What about you? I missed you, man." He took care not to spill his drink as he gave Gale a one-armed hug. "Did you have a good flight?"

"I slept through most of it." Gale wanted to add that at one point he woke up with his head on Madge's shoulder, but that would be petty and weird.

"Cool, cool." Thom nodded. "The next few days are going to be epic. You guys are going to love Norway."

"Can't wait."

Thom laughed. "You'll have to excuse him," he informed Madge. "That's just how he expresses enthusiasm sometimes." He gave Gale a light punch on the shoulder. "Speaking of which—you've been holding out. I thought you said your friend's name was _Mads_!"

"No, I said Madge," Gale said sourly. "What the hell kind of name is Mads?"

"It's a fairly common guy's name around here. You know, like Mads Mikkelsen? The guy from _Casino Royale_? The _Hannibal_ TV series?" Thom grinned. "So when you said you were bringing a friend you made in Iceland—well, I heard it as Mads, and thought it was a dude. It's an honest mistake. I never saw it written down, you just told me over Skype."

"They don't sound anything alike," Gale insisted.

"They do," Madge said. "Anyway, what does it matter? We're here now. And Thom was just telling me that his roommate knows a guy who actually builds replicas of Viking ships and sails them. He's going to try and reserve a spot for us."

"It's as good as done," Thom pronounced. "All we have to do is show up on Friday—which, serendipitously, I've already taken off."

"Serendipitously," Gale echoed.

Gale stewed in silence as the three of them made their way out of Oslo Central. He didn't say a word when Thom offered to carry Madge's pack for her. _I would've offered, if I didn't have a bag of my own, and if I didn't think she was perfectly capable of carrying hers._

Madge refused at first, but eventually she relented on the condition that she would carry Thom's messenger bag for him.

 _Perfect,_ Gale thought. _Just perfect._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please excuse my beginner's Norwegian. :D


	13. Minner (Memories)

Just when Thom thought life in Norway couldn't get any better, the universe conspired for him to meet Madge Undersee.

He tried to think of Madge the same way he thought of all the other girls: with cautious optimism. He'd had a few girlfriends, and some stuck around longer than others, but in the end none of them had worked out. Which was just as well. He could never quite capture the heady euphoria from his dream.

But from the moment he laid eyes on Madge at Deli De Luca… he couldn't explain it, but even in a sea of blondes she stood out. They had never met before, but there was something about her. Something familiar. He saw her, and it gave him a sense of déjà vu. He saw her, and it was as if a higher power was reaching out to him and shaking his shoulders, saying: _Pay attention. This is important._

After a couple of false starts—he should've known Madge wasn't a local when she apologized for something as trivial as bumping into him—he finally got a conversation going. It wasn't much, but he managed to impress her with basic Norwegian, and with the French he'd learned from his parents who had moved to the US from Montreal. He was pretty happy about that.

And _then_ it turned out that Madge was Gale's new friend, the one he'd met in Iceland. What were the odds? Fifteen minutes ago, Thom would've been content just to get her number. But, now, she was literally going home with him. Thom was over the moon, and it was all thanks to Gale.

"Gale says you've known each other since you were kids," Madge said, tilting her chin up to look at him. They were on the tram, squeezed in with the rush hour crowd, on the way back to the apartment. Madge had managed to find a seat, but Thom and Gale hadn't, so they stood hovering over her with the hiking packs stowed between their feet. "You have to fill me in on all the embarrassing details."

Thom leaned on the stanchion nearest Madge's seat and gave Gale a sidelong grin. "Oh, ho ho ho. Where should I begin?"

"You've got nothing," Gale declared firmly.

Thom pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. " _Au contraire, mon frère_. I know everything." He winked conspiratorially at Madge. "Let's see… remember when Bristel got his first PlayStation? You didn't win a single game of _Street Fighter_ that first week, and you sulked for _ages_."

"I was nine years old," Gale protested. "Maybe even eight."

"And you used to get in trouble all the time because you kept taking things apart."

"We all did! And we always put them back together." Gale paused. "Eventually."

"Yeah, but you were the one who started it," Thom reminded him. "You were always curious that way. That's what makes you a good engineer." A thought occurred to him, and he nudged Gale with his shoulder. "Hey, you know who else likes to tinker with stuff? _Delly_. She's working on her brother's van right now. Want to make a quick detour and see? Her parents' place is in Frogner, near where the Vigeland statues are. You'd like her, man."

The color drained from Gale's face. "You've got to be fucking kidding me. Don't you dare play cupid, Devereux. Not now."

"Sorry." Thom was instantly filled with remorse. Gale had been in love with Katniss Everdeen for the better part of a decade; for almost one-third of his _life_. Who knew how long wounds like that took to heal? Of course Gale wasn't ready to date again, much less date someone who lived so far away from him. Even if Gale did start working in Sweden, that was a whole country away from Delly.

Besides, you didn't date Delly Cartwright to forget about another girl. You dated Delly Cartwright because… well, because she was your everything.

Thom resolved to have a heart-to-heart with Gale the first chance he got, but for now he would try to make amends. "One thing about Gale that you need to know, Madge," he said slowly, "is that he's the most loyal person in the world. He's hot-headed and a bit rough around the edges, but when he cares about someone, he goes all the way. He does it for his family, for the girl he loves… for his friends."

Thom pointed at the scar on his cheek. "Our second year of college hockey, one of the enforcers from the other team got his stick up my helmet. Then I got checked so hard, the whole thing came off. I fell down face first and ripped my cheek open. There was blood— _my_ blood—all over the ice. The medics had to sedate me so they could stitch me up."

Madge turned deathly pale, but Thom continued. "When I came to, we'd already won, but Coach was furious. Apparently Gale went berserk on the guy who mowed me down. Bristel, too—and he was our goalie. They got thrown out of the game, and suspended from the next one."

"So did the guy who hit you," Gale said. "Anyway, he was a douche. He had it coming." But by then his scowl had disappeared, replaced by an expression of nostalgia.

There was an unexpected surge of emotion in Thom's chest. "I know Gale and Bristel have my back, no matter what," he told Madge. "I'm an only child… they're the closest things to brothers that I'll ever have." He smiled wistfully. "There aren't many things I wouldn't do for them."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

_Dammit, Thom, why'd you have to go and get sappy on me like that?_

When Madge asked for the dirt on Gale, and Thom proceeded to regale her with less-than-flattering stories of their shared childhood—not to mention attempt to set him up with his roommate—Gale had been sorely tempted to tell a few tales of his own.

For example, the fact that Thom hadn't gone out with a non-blonde since senior prom. When Gale and Bristel called him out on it, Thom swore it was because of some wacko, life-changing dream he'd had, and it didn't mean the girl had to be a natural blonde or even Caucasian.

Knowing Thom was a hopeless romantic, Gale didn't doubt it was true. But if he hadn't known Thom as well as he did, he would have automatically written him off as a scumbag. An exclusive preference for blondes was the kind of thing that could turn any sensible girl off Thom for good, and as much as Gale hated to admit it, that was exactly why he wanted Madge to know.

That is, until Thom started waxing sentimental. Until he started reminiscing about their NCAA days as if it had been a war that Thom, Gale, and Bristel had fought together. Until he got Gale all sentimental, too.

The three of them had become friends the usual way—they lived near each other, were in the same class at school, played the same sports—but soon their bond was much, much stronger than those factors alone could account for. Thom and Bristel were there for Gale when the accident in the mines almost killed his father. Gale and Bristel rallied behind Thom when his parents divorced. And, much earlier—when they were seven years old—Gale and Thom were the first ones outside Bristel's immediate family to step up when he was diagnosed with dyslexia.

For the next twenty years, Gale and Thom would help Bristel with school, work, and life in general, even turning down offers from colleges out of state so they could stay with him and make sure he got the support he needed. It was a decision they made without hesitation or regret. If they had been in Bristel's place—if they were the ones whose minds sometimes perceived the world as a muddle of arcane symbols, like the runes on Gale's ring—they knew Bristel would do the same for them.

Sure, the three of them could curse each other out, bicker over chores at the apartment they shared in St. Paul, even get into the occasional drunken brawl. But they could do all of that, and still come out the other side closer than ever, because Thom and Bristel were his brothers just as much as Rory and Vick were.

Suddenly, Gale was ashamed of himself for even thinking of sabotaging Thom's chances with a girl. Was he really willing to jeopardize their friendship over someone he had just met—a girl he might not even see again after this trip was over?

 _But it's not just any girl_ , he argued with himself. _It's Madge._

What was he going to do?

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Delly sighed. "This is more work than I bargained for."

Despite her reluctance to have anything more to do with _Russefeiring_ , Delly didn't think that helping her brother with his Russebil was going to be especially difficult.

Then again, that was because she had fully expected Alfie and his friends to buy a van that wasn't, to be perfectly blunt about it, absolute _shite_.

"Hundreds of secondhand vans on the market, and you picked this?" she said in disbelief. Delly and Lakshmi stood in the middle of the Cartwrights' garage, surveying the black Chevrolet van that Alfie, Lars, Pawel, and Anwar had just unveiled.

"What are you on about?" Alfie wanted to know, pushing his light brown hair out of his eyes. "It's registered and roadworthy. Dad helped me pick it out. There's nothing wrong with it."

"It's not even red! You're a _rødruss_ , for heaven's sake, not a _svartruss_." Once the Russ festivities were officially under way, seniors would start wearing their color-coded uniform overalls. Red meant they were going to university for general studies. Blue meant they intended to study economics or business administration, or that they were from a school that had historically worn blue. Black meant they were going to take vocational courses.

Whatever the color, the Russebil was expected to match. "We'll have to sand all the existing paint off and give it a coat of primer before we even get color on it," Delly said. Going into this project, she had expected to change the brake pads, maybe replace the battery or the drive belt. It was a given that the Russebil would need a new logo, but nowadays people used stickers for that, to make the vans easier to sell afterward. Delly hadn't anticipated that the entire van would need a new paint job.

"The black ones are cheaper because there's less demand," Alfie said.

She opened the back and groaned. "It doesn't even have a sound system yet!"

"Well, that's what we want, isn't it?" he contended. "To build our own? A proper audiophile system we can really mosh to?"

"Why do you always procrastinate, Alfie?" Delly groused. "Everyone else spends months, even a whole year, getting ready for Russ. Not _weeks_."

Lakshmi peered inside and wrinkled her nose. "What's that smell?"

Delly poked her head in and sniffed the air. "Oh, _god_."

"It was like that when we got it!" Alfie protested. Around him, his friends sniggered.

"Weed," Delly told Lakshmi in a resigned tone of voice. "It's weed."

"Is it?" Lakshmi said, her eyes round. "I never smelled weed before. You get the death penalty for that in Singapore."

The boys looked at her in horror. "No fucking way," Pawel said.

"It has to be five hundred grams over," Lakshmi amended. "Below, you get ten years in Changi. The prison, not the airport."

Alfie cringed. "How do you live?"

"It's illegal here, too," Delly reminded her brother.

"Yeah, but most of the time it's just a fine," Alfie countered. "Even if you go to prison, it's the nicest prison in the world."

Delly rolled her eyes. "As you can see, my brother has put a great amount of thought into this," she informed her flatmate.

"I have some weed right now," Lars said to Lakshmi. "Want to try?"

"Uh… no thanks, la," Lakshmi declined, shooting a quick glance at Delly. "I'm curious, but not that curious."

"I got it!" Anwar piped up. "The perfect name for our Russebil." He spread his hands dramatically. " _Russtafarian_!"

The boys laughed, but Alfie grew serious and shook his head. "Won't work unless we play reggae. And we're doing metal all the way."

Lakshmi looked confused, so Delly took it upon herself to explain. "It's tradition to give your Russebil a name. Half the time, they're stupid puns. The other half of the time, they're offensive. And of course, there are the gems that are both."

"Delly's was _The Fast and the Furiruss_ ," Alfie smirked.

" _Alfie_ ," Delly warned him.

"I love it," Lakshmi laughed. "Tell me some more."

There was a wicked gleam in Alfie's eyes. "Wait right here."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

"You were so _cute_ back then!" Lakshmi exclaimed, poring over photos that Delly thought would never again see the light of day.

After letting the name of Delly's Russebil slip, Alfie helpfully decided to further embarrass his sister by bringing down her old photos and Russ uniform. His friends were supposed to be coming up with a name and logo, but when Lakshmi started gushing over the pictures, they went to see what the commotion was about.

As for Delly, she had come to terms with being the only one doing any actual work. Their parents, who had instigated all of this in the first place, were at their _hytte_ —their family cabin along the coast—entertaining old friends from the British embassy who had flown in to visit on the spur of the moment.

"Are you saying I'm not cute now?" Delly grumbled, not looking up from her measuring tape. She needed the interior dimensions of the van before she could draw out a plan for the speakers.

"You know you're adorable," Lakshmi responded. "Thom always says so."

"Who's Thom?" Alfie questioned.

"Our other flatmate," Delly said. "Don't read too much into it. He's American." To paraphrase the _Lego Movie_ , everything was adorable to Americans.

Lakshmi carried on. "When you said you wore a red jumpsuit and a matching hat, I imagined something like Super Mario. But it's quite nice, actually. Especially with the straps and the bib thing down. And you look so _different_ blonde!"

"Yeah, she started dyeing her hair when she was in university," Alfie said.

Lakshmi let out another squeal. "Can I have one of these? Or two?" she pleaded, holding up a  _Russekort_ —a "business card" that Russ would hand out on the street to each other and to young school children who collected them like trading cards. "One for me and one for Thom."

"No!" Delly said quickly, surprising even herself by how vehement she sounded.

"Why not?" Lakshmi and Alfie chorused.

"Just—just don't."

"Okay," Lakshmi said uncertainly, putting the card back where she found it.

Delly turned back to her measurements, feeling a little guilty for ruining the mood. It wasn't that she didn't want Lakshmi and Thom to have souvenirs from the Russ season. But as far as Delly was concerned, the memories from _her_ Russ season should stay in the past where they belonged. The cards, the overalls, even photos of her with her natural blonde hair—they all reminded her of the person she used to be. Gullible. Naïve. And far, far too trusting.

When she was eighteen, Delly had gone into her own Russ with high hopes. She was young; her family was well off and well traveled; she was in love. Russefeiring was supposed to be the highlight of a Norwegian student's life, and there wasn't any reason why it wouldn't be the same for her.

At first, it seemed as if it would live up to the hype. She and her friends were having fun earning their "knots" or nodules—prizes that were literally knotted to the tassels of their Russ hats to prove that they had successfully completed an official, school-sanctioned Russ challenge. Challenges like hugging a hundred people in one day, going to class wearing bread as shoes, drinking beer through a tampon, or going to a grocery store and trying to haggle prices _upwards_.

But by the end of it all, Delly could only remember her Russ as the time she had sex for the first time, with a boy she adored, who then proceeded to have sex with nine other girls before the three weeks were through.

Maybe she shouldn't have been surprised. It wasn't uncommon for Russ to sleep around. In fact, it was expected, which was why couples tended to preemptively break up before the start of the season. But Delly always saw the best in people, and she foolishly thought that she had given her heart to someone who would take care of it. Unfortunately, he had slept with her for a knot, too—one that involved having sex with ten different people. He'd even earned an unofficial knot for "taking someone's virginity".

Granted, it could have been worse. In her case, the sex had been safe and consensual. Besides her devastation—and the humiliation of knowing someone had been listening in on them, to verify that they'd actually had sex—Delly emerged from the ordeal relatively unscathed. But she took little comfort in it.

So she fell back on clichéd coping mechanisms, like drastically changing her hair and throwing herself into her studies. As the years went on she thought that, by and large, she had moved on. But now, reminded of the way she used to look and the person she used to be, Delly was coming to the conclusion that she was wrong.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Madge was falling in love.

The Grünerløkka district, where Thom lived with his friends from work, didn't have the iconic landmarks of the Oslo harbor, nor did it have the stark beauty of the fjords Norway was so famous for. But whatever it lacked in nature or architecture, it more than made up for it in character.

"This used to be all factories and warehouses before the artists and students moved in," Thom shared. Almost as soon as he put Madge's bag down at the apartment, he had ushered them back out the door again for an impromptu tour of the area. "Delly's family was able to buy in before property prices skyrocketed. It was a pretty smart investment."

"Gentrification strikes again," Gale said wryly. "Damn hipsters."

"To be fair, we've been responsible for our own share of that," Thom reflected. "Think of all the neighborhoods in the Twin Cities that have been overrun with U of M students and grads like us. Anyway, the locals here are fighting to keep the bigger chains out, so that's something. It's an uphill battle, but—for now, at least—I think Grünerløkka has struck a balance. You have all the convenience and creature comforts that come with commercialization, but the authenticity is still there."

He pointed out a shop with a façade like broken glass. "That's the best espresso bar in Oslo. It's probably not a good idea to have another coffee now, but you'd love it, Madge—they have this one brew from Kenya that tastes like berries in butter." He chuckled. "Strange as that may sound."

"That doesn't sound strange at all," Madge replied. "It sounds delicious. I love berries _and_ butter."

"That makes you practically Scandinavian already." Thom smiled.

"Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries," Gale wisecracked in a horrible French accent, and Madge giggled at the reference.

Thom took them to see some of the more notable works of graffiti art before they ended up at a kebab restaurant for dinner. "I normally cook with my roommates, but they won't be back until later and there's not a lot of food back home," he said. "Except for frozen pizza. Norwegians have a strange obsession with this one brand of frozen pizza."

"That must be some hell of a pizza," Gale commented.

"Eh, it's all right." Thom shrugged. "Delly says people love it because it was the first, and sometimes being the first trumps everything else."

He pulled a microfiber cloth out of his pocket and used it to clean his glasses. "Fortunately, Grünerløkka has some of the best international cuisine in town, so we don't have to eat frozen pizza." He grinned at Gale. "Say what you want about hipsters, but they know their kebab."

They placed three orders for  _döner_ _kebab_ at the counter. "My mother's family is named Donner," Madge told Thom. "I know it means thunder in German—does _döner_ mean the same thing?"

Thom squinted at the menu. "I never actually thought about it. In French, _donner_ "—he paused to emphasize the difference in pronunciation—"means 'to give'. You know, like 'donate'. Let me ask what döner means."

He leaned over the counter and exchanged a few quick words in Norwegian with the cashier, who then gestured toward the meat roasting on a vertical spit behind him. "It's Turkish," Thom reported. "It means 'turning, rotating'. Like a rotisserie."

"Isn't it amazing how languages work?" Madge mused as they found a table. Thom pulled out a chair for her, and after she sat down he slid into the seat next to her. "They're just sounds, or squiggles on paper or a screen, and at first they don't make any sense. But when you start learning, suddenly they mean something. Suddenly there's a connection with a picture in your head, a concept, an emotion. You start to see the relationships between words… how we've all been borrowing from each other's cultures. Even when it's the opposite—when two people look at the same word and it means two completely different things to them—it still blows my mind. It makes me wonder what _else_ we're seeing differently." She sighed happily. "When I meet Darius, I'm probably going to talk his ear off."

"Who's Darius?" Thom asked.

"Jo's new boyfriend," Gale answered. "We're meeting them in Copenhagen on Saturday."

Thom's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "Jo has a boyfriend? I can't believe it."

"Believe it," Gale confirmed. "Danish guy. A linguist. Almost as ginger as Rafe."

"Jo and her gingers." Thom's hearty laugh faded, and he turned to Madge with a curious look on his face. "You know Jo Mason?"

"I've known Jo for years," Madge stated. "My best friend is Rafe's sister. Jo used to visit them in Seattle."

At this, Thom stared at her so intensely that Madge immediately felt self-conscious. "Um, is everything all right?" she ventured.

"You know Jo," he repeated, as if that one sentence explained everything. "Incidentally… did you, by any chance, go on a trip to Mount Rainier with her back in college?"

Now it was Madge's turn to stare at him. "How did you know?" She glanced at Gale, but he looked just as clueless as she felt.

Thom impulsively grabbed her in a bear hug, the way Wiress had done not too long ago. "I _thought_ you looked familiar!"

His mirth was infectious, and he smelled nice, so Madge didn't think twice about returning the embrace. "Me?" she wondered aloud.

"You're the girl from Jo's pictures." Thom held Madge at arm's length, as if he couldn't believe she was real. "Jo said… and I never… but, _mon dieu_ , here you are." His gray eyes filled with amazement. "Strawberry girl. It was _you_."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Gale was in shock.

He replayed the scene over and over in his mind. The way Thom engulfed Madge in his arms. The adoration in his friend's eyes. _Strawberry girl. I_ _t was_ you _._

As if Thom's speech about friendship earlier that day hadn't been enough, this most recent revelation was eroding any remaining resolve Gale had to confront his friend about Madge. The most basic thing that Gale had going for him—that he had seen Madge first—didn't even apply anymore.

Something Thom had said, in an entirely different context altogether, came back to haunt him. _Sometimes being the first trumps everything else._

 _But_ _I was the first_ , Gale thought stubbornly. _Thom just saw pictures. I was the one who actually_ _met her in person first._ _I was the one she had a real connection with first._

A connection he'd probably already ruined, thanks to his irrational jealousy over imaginary rivals, but whatever.

"I can't believe this is happening," Thom said, later when they turned in for the night. He had refused to let Madge crash on the couch, so he'd given her his room instead. Gale's stomach churned at the thought of Madge sleeping in Thom's bed.

"Neither can I." Gale shifted in his borrowed sleeping bag. True to the stereotype of the active, outdoorsy Scandinavian, Delly had enough camping gear to stock a small REI store.

"I've wanted to meet her for so long… now I finally have."

Gale stared up at the ceiling, watching shadows flickering in the lamplight. "You think she's the girl from your dream, too?" he asked needlessly.

He didn't have to look at Thom to know he was smiling. "I hope so."

"You do know it could have been the other way around," Gale speculated. "You could've seen Madge's pictures before you had that dream. Maybe you just saw her out of the corner of your eye, but she stuck in your subconscious, and you ended up dreaming about her. Then when you saw her pictures again… it reinforced the idea in your mind, and it became this never-ending feedback loop."

Thom seemed to consider this. "No, I don't think so," he said slowly. "I remember I was eighteen when I had that dream. Madge and Jo would've been in high school at the time. They definitely wouldn't have met yet—Jo and Rafe got together in college."

Gale felt himself deflate. "Oh yeah."

"But whether I saw Madge's pictures before the dream, or after… that doesn't make it any less meaningful. Even if you take the entire dream out of the equation… who would've thought I'd eventually meet that one girl I had a crush on from afar, all those years ago? And that our paths would cross in Norway, of all places? What were the odds?"

 _Oh, I don't know,_ Gale thought. _Maybe the same odds that my path would cross with hers in Iceland? That we would be on the same flight and bring virtually the same suitcase? That she would be traveling with Annie, and I would end up sitting next to Finn? That my ring—the ring my dad gave me, the ring I've worn 24/7 since_ I _was eighteen—would have Madge's name on it in Old Norse runes?_

Instead, he said: "I'm just worried that you've built up this elaborate fantasy in your head. If you think reality will ever live up to it… well, you're setting yourself up for disappointment."

Was he talking to Thom, or to himself?

He tried again. "A relationship isn't a dream, Thom. It isn't a fairy tale. It's a lot of work. Believe me, I know."

"You're preaching to the choir. My parents taught me that lesson a long time ago." There was a rustling sound: Thom pulling the blanket up to his chin. "You know what their divorce was like for me. You were there for all of it. More than anything, I wanted them to work it out. But they were just tired of trying."

Gale thought of Katniss, of all the time they'd spent trying to make it work. "Yes, but... sometimes divorce _is_ the best solution. Sometimes it's the only solution."

"I know," Thom said. "I'm not saying that divorce is _bad_. I guess what I'm saying is… I wish I didn't live in a world that doesn't believe in forever. Maybe that's why that dream had such an effect on me… why I've held on to it all these years. I _want_ to believe. Why shouldn't I believe in forever? Why _shouldn't_ I believe in soulmates? If I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that someone was my soulmate, I would never stop trying to make it work with her. If I had that certainty, it would all be worth it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little more language love for the lovely **EStrunk** on FFN :)
> 
> The elderberries quote is, of course, from _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_.


	14. Avsløring (Revelation)

Gale woke up to the sound of someone taking a shower.

_Where am I?_

Dazed, he lifted his head from the pillow and took stock of his surroundings. He certainly wasn't at home in St. Paul, but he wasn't at the Radisson in Reykjavík either. From the looks of things, he had spent the night on the floor of someone's living room—a living room much bigger than Annie's. _Then whose_ —

His eyes drifted down to the sleeping bag he was using. _Bergans of Norway_ , the logo read.

Thom's apartment in Oslo.

A quick glance at the clock on the wall told him it was 8:01 a.m. Thom said he had taken Friday off, but today was Thursday. That meant that right now, Thom was at work. Right now, everyone was at work.

Everyone except Gale and Madge.

The shower stopped running, and Gale forgot how to breathe.

_Shit shit shit shit shit._

Gale rolled over onto his side and pretended to be asleep.

_Get a grip, Hawthorne._ The bathroom was all the way down the hall. As long as he stayed where he was, Madge could get out of the shower and walk back to her room—Thom's room—and Gale would never catch a glimpse of her, even if he wanted to.

God, did he ever want to.

Before he could stop himself, he was picturing her in his mind. Damp, matted strands of blonde hair clinging to the sides of her face and neck. A towel wrapped precariously around her torso, leaving most of her long, perfect legs bare. Her skin pink from the hot water, from the apples of her cheeks down to the gentle swell of her breasts…

He heard the bathroom door swing open, and even though his eyes were already closed, he squeezed them shut even more.

Jesus Christ. Why was he freaking out? First of all, it wasn't as if he had never seen a woman come out of the shower before. He was twenty-seven years old, not fucking thirteen. Second of all, wasn't this what he wanted? To be alone with Madge again, without Annie and—better yet—without Thom?

This was it. This was his chance. To apologize to Madge, the way he wanted to yesterday. To tell her how he felt, and let her decide whether she wanted him, or Thom, if she wanted anyone at all.

If only he could get Thom's words out of his mind.

_I know Gale and Bristel have my back._ _There aren't many things I wouldn't do for them._

What things were those, exactly? If Thom knew how Gale felt about Madge, would he step aside? If they both pursued her and, by some miracle, Madge chose Gale, could Thom give way and not hold a grudge against either of them? Or would he stand his ground and fight? Was that where Thom would draw the line?

But that was beside the point. It didn't matter what Thom would do. Gale didn't want to be That Guy—the asshole who made a move on a girl, knowing full well that his friend liked her, too. He had already lost Katniss; if he lost Thom, he didn't know what he would do. Gale wanted to be with Madge, sure, but he wanted to be with her the right way.

It was going to be a long day.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Their breakfast buffet consisted of two kinds of bread, two kinds of jam, _five_ kinds of cheese, and an enormous plate of smoked salmon and assorted meats.

Madge shook her head. "And Thom said they were running low on food."

Some of the cheeses even came with their own, unique slicing tool. Gale inspected something that looked like a carpenter's plane. "Yep, we're in Europe, all right."

In the midst of it all was a note with helpful suggestions for sandwiches. At the bottom were the words **BON APPÉTIT** , and the names **THOM** , _DELLY_ & _Lakshmi :)_  signed in three different hands. Madge used that as a legend of sorts to figure out who wrote what. It proved to be especially handy when the suggestions turned into a culinary debate over the best way to eat brown cheese.

**BRUNOST + ROAST BEEF = DELICIOUS** , it said in large, heavy block letters, the kind of handwriting Madge associated with architects and engineers. That was Thom.

_MORE LIKE SACRILEGIOUS_ , it said in smaller block letters, written in a lighter hand and with hearts dotting the I's even though they were capitalized. That was Delly. _BRUNOST IS A NORWEGIAN ICON. PERFECT BY ITSELF OR WITH A BIT OF BUTTER._

Thom's handwriting popped up again. **Y U THROW SHADE AT MY ROAST BEEF, ROSBIF?**

_SHUT UP, FROGGY._

_How come UK people and French people never agree :P_ From the perfect cursive and liberal use of emoticons, Madge could tell that was Lakshmi. _Beef is bad for karma :P So I just put strawberry jam with my brunost only :)_

"This looks like a fun place to live," Madge remarked. "Everyone gets along so well."

"That's an understatement if I ever heard one." Gale pulled his phone out of his pocket and snapped a quick photo of a tub that was labeled _Prim_. "Rory's going to get a kick out of this. That's his girlfriend's name—it's short for Primrose."

That was the least grumpy Gale had sounded since his mood soured yesterday, and Madge immediately felt her spirits lift. "Really? How long have they been together?"

"God, I don't know. Almost as long as—" He hesitated. "Almost as long as me and Katniss." Another pause. "Prim is her sister."

Her smile froze in place. "Oh." It was a given that Gale's ex-girlfriend was a big part of his life, but the more Madge learned about Katniss, the more it seemed like she would never be completely out of the picture.

"Yeah. I think Rory was around sixteen when they officially started going out. He's a know-it-all, a big mouth, and annoying as fuck sometimes, but if Prim likes him, he must have _some_ redeeming qualities." Gale grimaced. "Don't ever tell him I said that."

Madge knew it was a throwaway line that didn't mean anything, but the idea that she might meet Gale's family someday made her strangely happy. "I won't."

He picked up the bread knife. "Want some rye?"

"Yes, please. Just one slice to start with."

Gale sliced off a piece for her. He watched her butter it and then top it with a dollop of jam and two slivers of brunost, as Lakshmi had recommended. "You really like strawberries."

Madge didn't know what to expect from the brown cheese, but she certainly didn't expect a salty sweetness that—especially when combined with the tartness of the strawberry jam and the earthy bite of the rye—seemed to satisfy all her cravings at once. "It's good," she marveled, her eyes widening. "It's _good_."

She offered him a taste. "It's _so_ good."

He recoiled slightly when she held the bread to his lips, but eventually she got him to try it, the same way she got him to try Annie's egg salad sandwich at the airport train station yesterday. "Weird. It's _called_ cheese, and it looks kind of like a solid block of peanut butter, but it tastes almost like caramel."

She nodded eagerly. "Yes! This is what salted caramel should taste like."

He took another bite. "It's an acquired taste, but it does get addictive very quickly."

"I might just spend all my souvenir money on this."

"Could be easier and cheaper to make it. You should ask Delly if she knows how."

"Good idea." Madge took a picture of the label for future reference. "Whoever invented this was a genius and I am forever in her debt."

Gale raised an eyebrow. "How're you so sure it was a her?"

"Well, they weren't called milk maids for nothing."

"Good point." He opened the tub of Prim. "Want to try the spreadable version?"

She beamed. "We're going to need more bread."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Later, Gale cleared his throat. "I'm really sorry about yesterday."

Madge didn't take her eyes off the map spread out on the kitchen table. "About what yesterday?"

Her sudden wariness reminded him that, even though the morning had gotten off to a good start, it wasn't enough to absolve him of the way he acted. "For… well, being an asshole to you at the opera house," he clarified, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "And basically being an irritable jerk half the time after that."

"Half the time?"

"Most of the time," he amended.

She looked up and fixed him with a critical stare. "And why was that?"

Her steely gaze and the challenging tone of her voice took him by surprise. "Are you cross-examining me, Miss Lawyer?" he couldn't resist saying.

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Please answer the question, Mr. Hawthorne."

Being interrogated by Margaret Undersee, attorney at law, was hot as _hell_ , but this was neither the time nor the place to start thinking about _that_. Gale's mind raced to come up with an answer. It would be easier for him to stay loyal to Thom if he didn't open the can of worms that was his own feelings, but he would rather commit ritual suicide than lie to Madge. "I plead the fifth."

Whatever she expected him to say, Gale could tell that wasn't it. "Pardon me?"

"I plead the fifth amendment," he repeated. "I _want_ to tell you, Madge, but I just can't."

For a few moments, Madge sat in silence, her eyes closed and her fingers pressed to her temple. Then: "I trusted you enough to go on this trip with you, Gale. I would appreciate it if you trusted me enough to tell me what's bothering you."

"I do trust you," he protested. "And I'm grateful that you trust me, too. That's why I'm pleading the fifth—because I don't want to lie to you. I don't _ever_ want to lie to you."

"But keeping secrets is okay?"

A mix of guilt and frustration was building up inside him. _Come on, Madge,_ he thought. _You already know what this is about. You're smart. Getting to the bottom of things is your job._

But he didn't say it out loud. If he said it, he would end up saying everything else, and regardless of how things played out, someone would always end up getting hurt. Surely she knew why he couldn't tell her. Surely she knew it was better this way.

Finally, Madge sighed. "Fine. I don't expect you to confide in me about everything. Just—just promise me you won't freeze me out again. We're traveling together, Gale. We have to communicate."

"You're right," Gale said, his heart flooding with gratitude for her understanding. "I promise I'll never freeze you out again."

"Good." She held her chin up high and looked him in the eye. "I'm glad we can agree."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Even though Madge had granted him a reprieve, Gale knew he wasn't out of the woods yet. How could he make it through an entire day of sightseeing with her, feeling the way he felt and not being able to do anything about it?

He needed a distraction. Something to keep his mind off Madge, off Thom, off this whole goddamned mess he had gotten himself into.

He got one.

"Are you sure this is the Viking Ship Museum?" Gale stared up at a nondescript building with an unassuming cream-colored façade and a red tiled roof. "This place looks more like a church, if anything."

In a way, it was. With its high, vaulted ceilings and austere white walls, the Vikingskiphuset wasn't so much a museum as it was a shrine to Norse ship building, and its visitors weren't so much tourists as they were pilgrims. Entering it was like entering a meditative state: his mind cleared, and he was immediately suffused with a tingling warmth, as if his entire body was reawakening after a lifetime of being numb. And when he lifted his eyes and saw a real-life longboat for the first time, he was overcome with awe, with reverent exultation, and—inexplicably—with _pride_.

He circled the perimeter of the ship as if in a trance, drinking in the sight of the dark, beautifully preserved oak, the perfectly overlapping planks of the hull, the exquisite designs carved into the keel and stern. The majestic prow cast a spiral-shaped silhouette on the dimly lit wall, and for a while he lingered among the shadows, thinking about the old shipwrights, feeling the presence of their gods.

Madge fell in beside him. "Hey," she said softly.

Things weren't completely back to normal between them, but it felt like they were getting there. "Hey."

"You look so…" She tilted her head to the side. "Enthralled."

"I am," he confessed. "There's something about this place. Something… important."

"It really makes the past come alive, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. Just think." He held his hands up, palms facing outward and his thumbs touching, like Cinna framing a shot. "Warriors on the deck. Rowing. Hoisting the sail. Their shields all lined up along the gunwale."

"Just like you and Finn back in Iceland."

Gale made a face. "I've been on a long-haul flight with Finn. I don't know how I could survive rowing next to him for days. He'd never shut up."

She laughed. He loved hearing her laugh. It occurred to Gale that as long as he could hear Madge laugh, things couldn't possibly be that bad.

"You would've been a good one." Madge nodded toward the ship. "A warrior. A Viking engineer."

"And you would've been the perfect Viking princess."

She pretended to look insulted. "Not a shieldmaiden? After all the ass-kicking Annie and I did at the shoot?"

"Princesses could be shieldmaidens, too," Gale maintained. "You could be anything. You could be everything."

"Hmm." She considered this. "Are you trying to get on my good side?"

"Is it working?"

"Maybe." She looked back up at the ship longingly. "I wish I could touch it."

If someone had told him that Madge could grow even more beautiful, he wouldn't have believed it, and yet here she was. "So do I."

They went up to the balcony so they could see inside the ship. Several other people had the same idea, so it took some time before they found a good vantage point.

A family with small children squeezed in next to them.

"' _Tschuldigung_ ," two high-pitched voices chorused, and Gale looked down into the bright blue eyes of identical twin girls. Norwegian? Some other kind of Scandinavian? He wasn't sure.

" _Kein Problem_ ," Madge responded gently, shifting to accommodate them.

" _Danke_ ," the twins' mother thanked her. Gale had been in Europe long enough to recognize that the word wasn't Norwegian or Icelandic. What other languages did Madge know? A knot formed in his stomach when he remembered. German.

The girls and their mother all had the same golden blonde hair, like Madge's, like her aunt's. Gale felt an icy hand wrapping its cold fingers around his heart as he recalled that Madge's aunt and mother had been twins. Gale had only seen Maysilee Donner on Annie's computer screen, but that was enough for him to see her uncanny resemblance to her niece. And if Madge could look that much like her aunt, how much more did she look like her own mother? What was it like to be in Madge's place, to be reminded of the woman who raised her—the mother she would never see again—every time she looked in the mirror?

All of a sudden, Gale was filled with self-loathing. He had been so freaked out over Thom's interest in Madge, and so anxious to secure his own place in her life, that he had stopped thinking about what was best for her, and made it all about himself instead. Even his determination to be loyal to Thom, as much as it was rooted in friendship and brotherhood, was influenced in part by Gale's not wholly unselfish desire to be the better man.

Maybe _this_ was why Katniss had fallen out of love with him. Maybe _this_ was how Gale had lost his best friend.

He put his hand on Madge's shoulder. He didn't know what to say. But then Madge twisted her head around and gave him a melancholy but grateful smile, and he knew he didn't have to say anything at all. He understood, now, that his job wasn't just to keep her safe, like he had promised her uncle Haymitch. His job was to keep her safe, and let her heal, so that at the end of their trip, Madge could go back home and live her life.

A life that didn't necessarily include him.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Delly stared bleary-eyed at her computer screen. She'd been reading and rereading the same email for the past five minutes, but none of the words were sinking in. All she could think of was going back to sleep. Back at the flat, curled up in her own bed, so soft and warm and _koselig_ …

"Delly!"

Her eyes flew open at the sound of her name, only to find a googly-eyed mass of blue fur inches away from her nose.

" _Du store alpakka_!" she shrieked.

It was Thom, prodding her awake with the Cookie Monster soft toy she always kept on her desk. "Me no big alpaca," he growled. "Me Cookie Monster. Time to feed me cookie, pretty lady."

Delly pressed a hand to her wildly palpitating heart and glanced around the office. It was empty. On one hand, she was relieved that nobody had seen her make a fool of herself. On the other hand, she was the tiniest bit miffed that everyone had gone to lunch without her.

She turned back to Thom with a weak smile. "Oh, froggy. It's just you."

"Me no Kermit either. Me want cookie."

Delly regarded the toy sternly. "You frightened me half to death, so there'll be no biscuits for you. But if you behave yourself, I'll give you a pastry for tea. Maybe I'll even take you to the Inferno Festival."

"Cookie Monster like metal," Thom rumbled. "All metal song sound like Cookie Monster counting to ten." He pitched the toy forward and backward, making it look like Cookie Monster was banging his head to imaginary music. " _En_ , _to_ , _tru_ , _fire_ , _fem_ , _seks_ , _sju_ , _åtte_ , _ni_ , _ti_!"

Despite herself, Delly dissolved into giggles. It was just about the most adorable thing she had ever seen or heard, and she wasn't one to take the word _adorable_ lightly.

Encouraged, Thom broke character just long enough to say in his normal voice: "I can do the alphabet, too."

Delly was laughing so hard, she was gasping for air. " _No_ , froggy—"

"I'm gonna do it—"

"I _can't_ —"

He launched into a Sesame Street/black metal mashup of the Norwegian alphabet, and soon she was clutching her side with one hand and wiping tears from her eyes with the other. "Stop! I'm dying. I'm literally crying. Oh my _god_ , Thom."

"Who Thom? He sound like great guy. Very handsome. Ten over ten, would recommend."

"Very cheeky, more like." Delly took a deep breath to collect herself, pursing her lips to keep them from twitching back up into a smile. "What brings you here, Thomas?" They had tea together every afternoon, but when it came to lunch, they usually ate with colleagues from their respective departments. In Lakshmi's case, she used part of her break to Skype her fiancé back in Singapore.

"Do I need a reason?" Thom shrugged. "I looked out the window and thought it would be nice to eat at the park. It's a beautiful day, _ikke sant_?" _Not true?_

Delly arched an eyebrow skeptically at him. His expression was a little too innocent, his tone a little too nonchalant, for him not to be up to something. " _Sant_ ," she finally relented, reaching for Cookie Monster. "Give it here."

Thom held Cookie Monster to his chest protectively. "I've grown attached to my little buddy. He's coming with us."

They walked out of Delly's office in silence, carrying Cookie Monster, their _matpakke_ , and a newspaper they could sit on in case all the benches at the park were taken. Once they were out of the building, however, Thom spoke up. "You were dozing off at your desk."

"Yeah… I didn't get enough sleep last night."

"How much is not enough?"

Delly knew he wouldn't like the answer, but she told him anyway. "Two and a half hours."

"Dell!" he groaned.

"I know, I'm awful. I started drawing up plans for Alfie's Russebil… next thing I knew, it was four-thirty in the morning."

Thom furrowed his brow in concern. "Are you all right? Lakshmi said you seemed upset at your parents' house yesterday. We don't want to pry, but if it's something you're losing sleep over…"

"I was just annoyed at my brother." It was the truth, but not the entire truth. "I want to help him, but he doesn't make it easy for me. It's fine now—Alfie and his friends promised to strip the paint off the van themselves, so I can focus on the sound system. And they _did_ get us tickets to Inferno. But it's just…" She threw her hands up helplessly. "Alfie does this all the time, and I'm so _tired_ of it."

The entire truth was that, after she had gone back to the flat—after she had met Thom's friends and made sure they had everything they needed for a comfortable stay—Delly had withdrawn into her bedroom and put some music on, hoping it would get the bitter taste of her Russ out of her mouth.

Unfortunately, even the angriest thrash albums in her iTunes collection didn't have the effect she was hoping for. Her music, so cathartic and therapeutic when she was younger, could barely take the edge off now. _You're not a child anymore, Madeleine. You can't expect life to magically sort itself out while you hole up in your room. If something's broken, you have to go and fix it._ The problem was, how could she possibly fix something that happened so long ago?

In disgust, Delly had ripped off her headphones and started working on ideas for Alfie's van instead. Over the years, she had tried her hardest to be a little more selfish, but she could never say no to her brother.

"It's my fault," she said to Thom. "I enable him."

"Dell—"

"It's all right. I'm perfectly aware that I'm the textbook definition of a doormat."

Thom turned to her, a pained expression on his face. "You're _not_. I haven't known you that long, but I see how much you care… how you give so much of yourself and don't expect anything in return. You just want others to be happy… especially the ones you love."

Tears prickled behind her eyelids. "But it's not enough," she whispered, blinking rapidly. _I'm not enough._

"Delly." His eyes searched hers. His forehead was creased with worry. "Is this still about your brother?"

She hesitated. It had been a long time since she last talked about it. Her closest friends were tremendously supportive when it happened, but they weren't around as much anymore, either because they had moved away or because they had settled down. Besides, she preferred to think of her Russ experience as something that happened to a completely different person. If she started talking about it again, how could she keep up the illusion?

Maybe that was her problem. Maybe that was why she still couldn't find closure.

And if she had to tell someone, she was glad it was Thom. It had been difficult to take him seriously at first; his endless barrage of compliments and his penchant for flirting in _French_ had been amusing but also slightly unnerving. But then he'd surprised her with tea, and from then on he consistently revealed himself to be thoughtful and kind. At the very least, none of the French had been directed at _her_. If anything, it was the opposite: the only languages Thom used around her were English and Norwegian. Whether he was doing it on purpose or not, she couldn't deny it warmed the cockles of her Viking heart.

_I can tell Thom,_ she thought. _I can trust Thom._ He made her feel safe. He gave her the courage to say the name she hadn't dared think about in years.

"No," she said at last. "It's about Kalf."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Growing up, Thom was always the calm, collected one. In their group of friends, Gale was the one with the temper, Bristel was the prankster, and Thom was the one who balanced them out and kept them from getting into too much trouble.

But listening to Delly talk about her ex-boyfriend, and the unforgivable way he'd hurt her all those years ago, was making him see red. For the first time, he was struggling to keep his cool in public.

"And the worst part was," she was saying, "that _drittsekk_ expected me to take him back. He was absolutely astonished when I didn't. After all that! Can you imagine it?"

"Oh, I'm imagining it." They had arrived at the park a few minutes ago, and now he was pulling out clumps of grass and crushing them in his fists. "I'm imagining punching this Kalf guy in the fucking face. _Tabarnak._ "

He'd taught his roommates how to curse in Quebecois before, so Delly understood what he meant. "I never thought I'd actually hear you say that."

"This is a special occasion." Thom shook his head. " _Calisse_. I'm so sorry, Dell."

"There's nothing you could have done. Don't apologize."

"Someone has to." A lump formed in his throat. "Men are stupid."

Delly choked out a laugh. "Why, what have you done that was so stupid?"

"Give me time. I'm sure I can think of something."

She sighed. "I must be the _queen_ of stupid, if I gave Kalf the impression that I would put up with his bullshit."

"What's stupid about expecting respect, or at least basic common decency, from someone who says he cares about you?" Thom dusted his hands off angrily, showering their makeshift picnic blanket with blades of grass and bits of soil. "What's stupid about loving someone the way you want to be loved?"

Delly hugged her knees to her chest. "I'm stupid because I still keep asking myself… what did I do wrong? Why wasn't I enough for him? And would I ever be enough for anyone? I've been with other guys since then, but I'm always so paranoid… I can never quite believe that anyone would want me."

It hurt to see her like this, so lost and utterly defeated. "You didn't do anything wrong," Thom insisted passionately. "You _are_ enough, Dell. Don't ever doubt that you're enough. If I—if I had—"

_If I had you,_ he meant to say, _I'd never want anyone else._ But he caught himself just in time. "If I'd been there, I would've given Kalf a piece of my mind."

Where did _that_ come from? Delly was his friend. He couldn't possibly—

Thom grabbed Cookie Monster from his lap and quickly held it in front of his face before Delly noticed how flustered he was. "If me have pretty lady, me no need cookie." He winced at the way his voice cracked, like a pimply pubescent boy's, at the word _pretty_.

What the hell was going on?

Delly laughed softly. It was the sweetest sound Thom had ever heard. "Thank you, Cookie Monster. That means a lot to me. And thanks for letting me vent. I needed that… I feel a bit better now."

He felt his face break into a huge, dopey grin. "Don't mention it."

She stretched her legs out in front of her. "I'm exhausted. I've talked enough about my tragic backstory," she said matter-of-factly as she started unwrapping her _matpakke_. "Let's talk about _you_ now."

The change in subject caught him off guard. "Me? What's there to talk about?"

"Well, for one thing, your love life looks rather promising."

He stared at her blankly.

"Madge," she reminded him. "On the way to work this morning, you were talking about Madge. Very enthusiastically, I might add."

"Oh," Thom said. He put Cookie Monster down again. "Right."

Delly took a bite of her sandwich, chewing thoughtfully. "But what about G—" She paused to swallow before she continued. "What about, um… that Swedish girl you went out with recently? Glitter, was it?"

"Glimmer?" he said, trying to sound casual as he reached for his own lunch. "We, uh, didn't have a lot in common. It was pretty much dead on arrival."

She side-eyed him suspiciously. "There's something you're not telling me, Thomas."

He briefly wondered when Madeleine Cartwright had come to know him so well. "She also, um, propositioned me."

Dark eyebrows shot up. "And?"

"And nothing," he defended himself. "She just wanted to have fun. I didn't."

"Good to know you're anti-fun."

"You know what I mean."

Delly raised her sandwich to her lips again, but instead of taking another bite, she let it hover in mid-air. "What did Glimmer say?"

"I don't think she expected I would turn her down, but she was cool about it. Anyway, we probably won't see each other again. She's going back to Stockholm."

"Well, I suppose it worked out for the best. Madge is here now, and she's lovely."

"She is." All of a sudden, Thom was incredibly thirsty.

"Imagine if you started something with someone… then you found the one you _really_ wanted."

He gulped down a mouthful of Solo. "Yep," he said in a neutral tone. "That would be a disaster."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Thom was in a daze.

_Madge,_ he said to himself. _You want Madge. You've always wanted Madge._ He repeated her name, chanted it over and over in his head like a mantra. _Focus on Madge._

But he couldn't stop thinking about Delly.

He couldn't stop thinking about the time she dragged him and Lakshmi out hiking, his first weekend in Norway. He'd always prided himself on being in good shape, but she had hotfooted it past them and yelled "Keep up!" over her shoulder, her eyes sparkling. When they got back to the apartment, instead of turning the heat on she'd insisted that they sit around the fireplace drinking hot chocolate, because that was more _koselig_. He couldn't stop thinking of the way they cooked together, cleaned up together, flicked foam and dishwater at each other. It hadn't been long since they started living together, but now he could not, for the life of him, imagine living without her.

"Thom!"

He was on his way back from a meeting when he heard his name. It was the first girl he tried to chat up in Oslo: Lene from Human Resources.

"Hey hey, Lene." They never actually dated—she had tactfully brought up the matter of her boyfriend before he could ask her out—but they were on good terms, and she was friends with Delly. In fact, when Lene first moved to Oslo from Stavanger two years ago, Delly had taken her in, the same way she had taken in Thom and Lakshmi. "What's up?"

"I was going to email you," Lene said, a little breathless from chasing him down. "But I saw you pass by, so—here." She thrust a folder into his arms.

"What's this?" Thom asked as he opened the folder.

"New job advertisements." Lene jabbed a finger at the first page. "Look."

Thom stared down at the piece of paper. He knew one of his colleagues was pregnant, which meant the company would need to hire someone for about a year while she was on maternity leave. But he hadn't expected a second, permanent position to become available. His manager had been asking if he would consider staying in Oslo, but then again every Norwegian he met asked him the same thing.

Was this a sign? Was this the universe's way of telling him that he should be with Delly—that he should forget about the blonde girl from his dream?

He flipped through the rest of the documents. "Do you have the job description? Criteria for selection?" He had the qualifications and the skills, but it would be difficult for him to compete on the basis of local experience and language proficiency.

"It's exactly the same as your job now," Lene assured him, just as Thom's eyes landed on the list of international vacancies. There was a similar opening in Stockholm, and another in—of all places—Seattle.

His heart leaped. " _Takk_ , Lene. This… this is really good timing for me."

Lene tugged on a stray blonde curl and smiled up at him. "I hope you get it," she said sincerely. "Delly will be so happy. _Så spennende._ " _So exciting._

He whipped his head up. "Did she say anything?"

"Well—no," Lene admitted. "But you're good together. Anyone can see that. Today you two came back from lunch swinging that doll between you like it was your kid or something."

"She likes Cookie Monster," was all he could say to justify it.

"She helped me so much when I first moved here, you know? She has such a big heart."

"I know." Thom had never met anyone like Madeleine Cartwright—not before, not since, and probably not ever.

Lene checked her watch. "I need to go," she said, taking the folder back from him. "But I'll post it all on the intranet soon. If we don't find someone internally after two weeks, we open it to everyone else. _Lykke til_." _Good luck_.

"Thanks," he said. "I'll need it."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

When Gale and Madge returned from the museums, they found Thom outside the apartment building, leaning against the wall and taking long drags off a cigarette.

"Hey," he greeted them hoarsely. "You're back."

The first time Thom tried smoking, his parents had just separated. It never became a full-blown habit—there would be hell to pay if their hockey coaches, not to mention Prim or Mrs. Everdeen, ever caught him—but every now and then he would go through a pack when things got especially rough.

"What happened?" Gale asked, even though he was dreading the answer. What was so awful that it drove Thom to buy cigarettes in one of the most expensive cities in the world?

Thom turned his head to the side, being careful not to blow smoke in their direction. "Stressful day."

Madge glanced worriedly at Gale. "Is there anything we can do?"

Thom gave her a small smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I just need to talk to my friend here."

Gale felt his stomach drop. _He knows._ _He knows how I feel about Madge. How did he find out?_ Gale knew he'd have to come clean to Thom sooner or later, but he didn't expect it to go down this way. He certainly didn't expect it to go down _now_ , so soon after his decision to focus on supporting Madge instead of obsessing over a nonexistent rivalry.

"I'll leave you two alone, then," Madge said uncertainly. "Are the girls upstairs?"

Thom nodded. "Delly's taking a nap. If you need anything, ask Lakshmi."

Gale waited for Madge to leave before he said anything else. "Listen—"

Thom cut him off. "I'm fucked, Gale. _L'ostie… de crisse… de sacrament_." He enunciated each syllable slowly but forcefully, like nails being driven one after another into someone's coffin.

Smoking _and_ swearing? Gale made another desperate attempt to explain himself before Thom blew up at him. He'd never experienced it before, but there was a first time for everything. "I was trying to tell you—"

Thom let out a short bark of laughter. "You were, weren't you? I should've pulled my head out of my ass and listened. Would've saved me a whole lot of grief."

"But you were so fixated on that _dream_."

"I wish I never had that dream." Thom coughed and swiped at his mouth with his sleeve. "What do I do now? _Calvaire_ , it's too late. I think I'm in love."

"I know," Gale said, gritting his teeth. "You're in love with—"

"—Delly," Thom said, at the exact same moment Gale said, "Madge."

"Hold up," Gale backtracked. "What was that again?"

Thom grunted in exasperation, smoke hissing out of his nostrils. "I'm in love with Delly. You told me to ask her out, remember?"

"Yes," Gale said slowly. "Yes, I did."

"Before you even _met_ her, you said she had me wrapped around her finger, and you were right." Thom pulled his glasses off and rubbed his eyes wearily. "I was just too _tabar_ fucking blind to see it."

_Is this really happening?_ "What about Madge?"

"Madge is everything I could ever want. But at the same time, she's not." Thom put his glasses back on. "They posted openings for my job today. Two here, one in Stockholm, one in Seattle. I could've tried for Seattle—I could've tried for them all—but I didn't. I sent my application in for Oslo, and I'm not planning on applying anywhere else."

_This is really happening._ "I'm offended you're picking some girl over me," Gale teased him. He couldn't begin to describe how relieved he was that he could say it without hypocrisy. "If Stockholm wasn't your first choice, this friendship is over."

"Ha ha."

Gale knew it shouldn't matter, but he had to ask. "What made you change your mind?"

"I was talking to Delly today, and I realized… I would do anything to make her smile. To make her laugh." Thom raked a hand through his hair. "Because I'm crazy about her. Because when she's happy, _I'm_ happy. Because I want to be the one to _make_ her happy."

"Well, there you go," Gale said encouragingly. "The next step seems obvious to me. Just tell her how you feel."

"I'll be lucky if she even believes me." Thom flicked the ash from his cigarette and groaned. "I'm so angry at myself, Gale. Here I am, living with the most incredible, amazing woman… and I almost missed her, because I was too caught up in a fantasy. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_."

Gale folded his arms across his chest and leaned one shoulder on the wall next to Thom. "No arguments there." He grinned.

"You know what I'll miss from that dream, though? How confident… how fearless it made me. Whenever things didn't work out with a girl, I'd accept it and move on, because I was so sure I would find the right one eventually. But now… _calisse_." Thom dragged his hand down his face, as if he were trying to peel the skin off his bones. "Now, I'm on my own. Now, it's just me. And that scares the fuck out of me. Not because I'm worried Delly isn't right for me. I'm terrified because I _know_ she deserves so much better than me."

_I never thought I'd see the day._ "You really are serious," Gale realized. "You finally have something real."

Thom allowed himself another smile. "I do."

"Then go tell her, man. Let _her_ decide whether you're worthy. You'll never know until you try." Gale twisted the ring on his finger. "If nothing else, she's your friend. You owe it to her to be honest about the way you feel. And if it turns out she feels the same… well, _that's_ the dream."

He pressed the ring to his lips, warming the cool silver with his breath. "Life's too short," he said. "Make your own destiny."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick cheat sheet for some of the less familiar words and phrases below. There are others, but I hope they were satisfactorily explained/inferred in this chapter and/or in previous ones.
> 
> Norwegian: _koselig_ = cozy; _drittsekk_ = shit sack (i.e. scumbag).
> 
> Quebec French; note that spelling/pronunciation may differ from standard/formal French: _tabarnak_ = tabernacle; _calisse_ = chalice; _ostie_ = host (the communion wafer); _crisse_ = Christ; _calvaire_ = Calvary.
> 
> _Rosbif_ (roast beef) is how the French sometimes retaliate when Brits call them frogs.
> 
> Many thanks to **hawtsee** , **Solaryllis** , and **Dandelion Lass** for their time, invaluable insights, and midwifing this chapter to completion. Kalf's "cameo" is dedicated to **FandaticForeverAndAlways**. The extra dose of Thelly fluff is for **Famousfremus** and everyone who may or may not have been traumatized by ["Requiem"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6445162). _Jeg elsker deg!_
> 
> [Playlist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9MAg9E5K3w&feature=youtu.be&list=PLL-gXYwZ1g8J86uw1Usv7tGKFwXOSyMzS)


	15. Forspill (Foreplay)

Early the next morning, Madge and Gale were back at the harbor, this time with Thom leading the way.

It didn't take long before they found what they were searching for.

With its dragon's head prow and all-wood construction, the _Sea-Serpent_ stood in stark contrast with the modern vessels docked alongside it. Even though Madge had spent hours looking at Viking ships at the museum yesterday, it was another thing altogether to see one in the water.

A shiver ran down her spine as she wondered how the Saxons must have felt, standing on the shores of England as the longboats appeared on the horizon. If she had been alive back then—if the Vikings had come to raid _her_ land and _her_ people—would she have been able to fight? Would she have tried to escape?

Would it have mattered?

" _God morgen_!" Thom called out, interrupting her thoughts. " _Jeg ser etter_ Floki?"

Since the boat was anchored, the sail had been taken down. In its place was a lanky man with the disproportionately long arms and legs of a spider, perched precariously on the boom and hanging on to the rigging.

At the sound of Thom's voice, the man leaned back, and for one terrible moment Madge thought he had fainted. But he was surprisingly agile, and he tucked into a backwards somersault, landing on his feet on the deck.

"I am Floki, and Floki is me," he said in a singsong voice, wrapping one arm around the dragon's head. "You are Delly's American friends? _Velkommen_ , _velkommen_. You are early. That is good. That is very good."

He leaped off the boat and onto the pier in front of Madge. He was very tall—even taller than Gale—but the way he was hunched over made him seem shorter. His head was permanently bent forward, his chin jutting out and his neck curved like a vulture's. The sparse brown hair on his head was swept up into a baby-fine mohawk, and there was a thick line of kohl ringing his eyes and extending out behind his ears.

He took a step closer, peering curiously at Madge. When his intense amber eyes fell on the Mjolnir pendant around her neck, he shouted in delight and reached out to touch it.

Both Gale and Thom surged forward, and Floki withdrew his hand. "Not to worry, boys," he giggled. "You have nothing to fear from me." He pulled down the collar of his shirt to reveal his own necklace. "I worship Thor, too."

He capered back onto the boat, humming happily to himself.

"Is this guy for real?" Gale muttered as they followed. He eyed the tattoo on the back of Floki's neck warily. Madge knew the symbol—three interlocking triangles—was associated with Odin, but from an angle and far enough away, it wasn't unreasonable to mistake it for a swastika.

"Delly says he's eccentric, but harmless," Thom whispered back. "And she promises he's not a Nazi, neo- or otherwise."

They watched Floki as he stood with his back to them. As he gazed out across the river, he lifted his arms high above his head, moving his hands and fingers in graceful, fluid, deliberate patterns, looking for all the world like a mystic conjuring bright skies and fair winds.

The rest of the boat's crew arrived, and soon the deck was teeming with other tourists, buzzing with excitement over the trip ahead.

At last, Floki swung his hips around to face them. "It is a good day to sail," he proclaimed, the corners of his mouth curling in pleasure. "But before we proceed, let us pray to the gods."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

At first, Floki intoned the prayer in Old Norse, his mellifluous but incomprehensible words rising and falling with the waves that lapped at the sides of the ship. But then there was a brief, but pregnant, pause, and the enigmatic man began the litany again, this time in English.

 

_Ale-brewer, ship-destroyer,_

_Look upon this journey with favor._

_As we travel down the whale-road_

_Astride this, our sea-steed,_

_Light our way with the sky-candle,_

_the all-shining, the everglow._

_Fill our sails with the never-silent,_

_the howler, the squall-maker._

_Keep us from the bones of the earth;_

_Shield us from the tears of the clouds._

_But, if we are fated—_

_If our threads are cut—_

_Then let us find rest in Rán's bed,_

_Let us find comfort in her daughters' arms._

 

The bleak imagery made Gale's hair stand on end. _Well, that was comforting._ He knew the Norse pantheon was a fatalistic bunch; still, he didn't appreciate being reminded of his own mortality. He especially didn't appreciate being reminded of the possibility of drowning, and on this day of all days. The day he would attempt to sail a boat for the first time. The day he would attempt to sail a wooden boat in unfamiliar waters, thousands of miles away from home.

Floki saw his discomfort and grinned gleefully. "The Vikings were not afraid of death, you see. Everything in the nine realms passes away. Even the gods." He clung to the mast and lifted his eyes toward the heavens. " _Especially_ the gods."

"Why would people want to worship a mortal god?" Gale couldn't help wondering aloud.

"Ah, but is the Christ-God not mortal, himself?" Floki countered with a smile. "I have heard learned men say that mortality makes the gods of the North more human. They claim that it comforted my ancestors to know that the gods, for all their power and glory, ultimately shared in the same destiny."

"And you?" Madge asked. "Does it comfort you?"

"Oh, yes. But not for the reason they say." Floki grasped his amulet and kissed it reverently. "I do not derive some perverse joy from bringing the gods down to my level. I delight in the knowledge that _I_ can ascend to _theirs_. It comforts me to know that humans can be like gods. It comforts me to know that—in a way—we already are."

There was a moment of silence as they contemplated this. Then, Thom spoke up. "If the Vikings weren't afraid of death," he ventured, "then what were they afraid of?"

"That is a good question," Floki conceded. "I think they were afraid of a great many things. They were afraid of a calculated risk not taken. They were afraid of a life not well lived. Most of all, perhaps, they were afraid of being forgotten."

He placed a hand on Thom's shoulder. "We have a saying: 'Cattle die, kinsmen die, the self must also die. I know one thing which never dies: the reputation of each dead man.'

"That is why warriors aspired to be poets; why kings retained skalds," he continued, his tone lilting but filled with conviction. "Because stories are important. We tell stories so we may never forget. We tell stories so that the dead will live forever."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

After Floki's impromptu lecture, they hoisted the sail and set off. In time, Gale's apprehension faded away, replaced by his excitement from yesterday. The only thing better than seeing a Viking ship, he decided, was actually sailing one himself.

"Do my eyes deceive me?" Thom grinned. They sat side by side, as rowing partners. "Or is Gale Hawthorne participating in a water sport and actually enjoying it?"

Gale chuckled as he pulled the oar toward himself. The water pushed back, but he leaned into the stroke until the oaken blade broke the surface with a satisfying splash. Rowing had come surprisingly easily to him. Especially now that he and Thom had found a rhythm and settled into it, rowing was almost as natural as breathing. "It's actually kind of soothing, once you get used to it."

"Yep. Nothing like a nice, relaxing row out to sea before some good old-fashioned pillaging," Thom murmured. "I wish Delly were here."

Gale sneaked a glance over his shoulder at Madge. He'd worried that all Floki's talk about death would trigger her, but she seemed to be handling it well enough—as far as he could tell. She was sitting a few rows behind them, on the other side of the boat. Every now and then she would exchange pleasantries with her partner, one of the women from Floki's crew. Most of the time, however, she seemed content to row in silence.

"When are you going to talk to Delly, anyway?" Gale wasn't worried that his friend would change his mind again, but he would feel a whole lot better if Thom just told Delly how he felt already.

"Soon. Tonight."

"At Inferno?" Gale frowned. "I know you're both into that kind of thing, but I assumed you would pick somewhere more romantic." It would be nearly impossible to carry on any conversation at a heavy metal concert. What good would Thom's declaration of love do if Delly couldn't even hear it?

"At Inferno, at home, somewhere in between… I haven't really thought it through." Thom pushed the oar down and rotated it away from his torso. "No, that's not true. I haven't stopped thinking about it since yesterday. There must be a million ways to say it, but nothing feels right. How did you tell Katniss, again? The first time, I mean. It was so long ago."

Gale grimaced at the memory. "I was helping her with a present for Prim's birthday. I thought, she was in a good mood, it was as good a time as any. So I said it. But she didn't say it back. I got upset and walked out."

"Ah. Now I remember." Thom tried to smother a guffaw and failed. "Sorry."

"Laugh all you want. We were young. I'm fully aware I used to be an idiot."

" _Used_ to be?" Thom smirked.

"Turning the tables on me now, are you?" Gale's eyes darted toward Madge again. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

Gale stared straight ahead, feeling self-conscious. From that first chat with Finn on the plane to Iceland, to the conversations he'd had with Thom since he arrived in Norway, he'd never talked about _relationships_ and _feelings_ so much before. Then again, wasn't this the whole point of traveling—to step outside one's comfort zone? And it wasn't as if he was confiding in just anyone. Thom had been there almost all his life, through the good times and the bad, and as for Finn… they'd only just met, but Gale had seen enough of his loyalty and generosity to know that Finnick Odair was the kind of friend you would literally kill for.

"What do you think…" He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. "What could I have done differently with Katniss?"

"Gale." Thom furrowed his brow in concern. "Are you trying to win her back?"

"What? No," Gale hastened to say. "God, no. It's just… you wanting to do things right with Delly got me thinking… wondering where I went wrong with Katniss."

"You said you thought she was falling for that guy from the soup kitchen."

Gale did say that, but he wasn't proud of it. "It was shitty of me to assume that. Besides, whether or not there was someone else… she clearly wasn't a hundred percent happy with _me_. So I figured… I should learn from my mistakes and all that shit. Otherwise I'd be doomed to repeat them."

Thom opened and closed his mouth a few times before he finally said, "That's very mature of you."

"Yeah, well." Gale's face reddened. "You still haven't answered my question."

"Now that you ask, there _was_ something that always struck me about you two." Thom adjusted his grip on the oar. "Just now, you said you picked that time to tell Katniss because she was in a good mood. And she was in a good mood because you had just done something for her."

"I was an idiot, but I wasn't _suicidal_. Of course I was going to wait for her to be in a good mood. Of course I was going to stack the odds in my favor. I would've been colossally stupid not to."

"Agreed. But… how do I put this?" Thom took a deep breath and chose his words carefully. "It seemed to me that you and Katniss were always keeping score. I don't doubt the love was real—Bristel and I were always a little jealous of how close you were. But sometimes it seemed like… like the goal was to make sure you were always even. Think of the way you told her, how upset you were that she didn't say it back. When she didn't reciprocate immediately, you stopped being equals, and you hated it. And Katniss was guilty of it, too. When you started hooking up with other girls in college, _you_ gained the upper hand, so she restored balance the only way she knew how. She claimed you."

Hearing the words was like getting stabbed in the heart, and that was how Gale knew it was the truth. "Fuck, Thom. Why didn't you say something?"

"I didn't know it was _wrong_. To me, it showed how much alike you and Katniss were, and I guess… I guess I thought similarity meant compatibility. Besides, who was I to judge? With my parents' divorce and all… I was obsessed with the idea of forever. As messed up as you and Katniss were sometimes, at least you seemed determined to stick it out together. Up until recently, that is." Thom laughed ruefully. "That's why it was so easy for me to fixate on that dream. That's why I'm so terrified that I'll mess things up with Delly."

Thom took one hand off the oar just long enough to pat his chest, and Gale knew he was checking for the cigarettes in the inside pocket of his jacket. "Does she know you smoke?" Gale asked.

Thom looked miserable. "No."

Gale could only imagine how Delly would react if she found out. Or, rather, when. "Do your lungs a favor, Devereux. Just get the damn thing over with." He paused. "Anything else for me? What else could I have done better?"

"Don't get me wrong. I enjoy pointing out your flaws," Thom teased him. "But you have plenty of time to analyze your shortcomings as a boyfriend. There's no need to rush, unless there's someone—"

Thom froze in mid-sentence, throwing off their timing, and there was a split second of adrenaline-fueled panic as Gale fumbled with the oar to keep it from pinning them to the deck.

When Thom recovered, he rounded on Gale, his eyes wide. " _No_."

Gale had avoided this confrontation for as long as he could, but now he was going to get it. _Why did I have to bring it up? Why did I have to sound so eager?_ He braced himself for the inevitable.

"Hawthorne." Thom was thunderstruck. "You _crosseur_."

That was a new one. "What does that mean?"

Thom looked simultaneously thrilled and horrified. "It means you're a double-crossing wanker! It's Madge, isn't it? Did something happen between you two?"

Gale felt even more blood rush to his ears. "Nothing happened," he maintained. Almost kissing at a photo shoot didn't count, did it? "She doesn't even know. For fuck's sake, keep your voice down."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I wanted to! But you should've seen your face that first day. When you realized she was the girl from Jo's photos. When you were talking about how she could be the one. I couldn't do that to you." Gale exhaled. "Then yesterday, when you had that epiphany about Delly… I was happy for you. I didn't want to make it all about me." _Like I usually do._ "Are you mad?"

"A little. Not so much mad as… completely disoriented. You know the feeling when you miss the last step on a staircase? Like that." Thom shifted in his seat, processing this new information. "So you were just going to let me go after her?"

"Probably. Yeah. I didn't like it one bit—I didn't want anyone to make a move on her, and somehow the fact that it was _you_ made it worse. But I could learn to live with it, if I had to. Besides…" Gale's chest constricted painfully. "I don't own her."

" _Saint ciboire de sacrament_ …" Thom trailed off. "You do know this answers your question, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"You wanted to know what you could have done better. Well, here's one. Almost from the moment you met Katniss, even if there was nothing romantic between you at the time, you made it pretty clear that she was yours. If anyone so much as looked at her, you jumped down that person's throat. But now you're learning, Gale." There was astonishment, but also pride, in Thom's eyes when he smiled. "You're learning to let go."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Madge had never been so tired, and yet so exhilarated, in her entire life. Even though the sailing trip was over by lunchtime, and Thom had previously suggested walking around the Medieval Park and St. Hallvard's Cathedral afterwards, the three of them unanimously agreed to drop their plans in favor of going back to the apartment to rest.

So when Lakshmi knocked on her door—Thom's door—later that afternoon, asking if Madge already knew what she was wearing to the concert, all she could manage was a grotesque moan that sounded more like a horrible Chewbacca impression than a coherent answer.

"Sorry?" Lakshmi poked her head in. "I didn't catch that."

"I spent all morning rowing," Madge said, embarrassed. Ever since Annie moved away for grad school, Madge had become woefully inactive, and now she was paying the price. "I can't move my arms."

"You poor thing! Wait, I can help."

Lakshmi disappeared for a minute, but soon she returned brandishing a small glass pot with a copper-colored lid. "Tiger Balm solves everything."

"Oh, but you don't have to—"

Lakshmi shushed her. "It's fine, Madge, I do this all the time for my friends back home. Delly!" she shouted as she unscrewed the lid. "Let's have that meeting in here."

"Meeting?" Madge repeated, confused.

Lakshmi nodded solemnly. "I'm declaring a state of fashion emergency."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Five minutes later, Madge's arms, shoulders, and upper back were tinted orange and smelling of camphor and menthol. However, she did have to admit that the Tiger Balm's simultaneously warming and cooling effect, combined with Lakshmi's magic fingers, made her feel much better.

"Anywhere else?" Lakshmi was kneeling on the bed, and now she sat back on her heels as she looked at Madge up and down. "Your legs and lower back probably hurt, too. I bet your glutes are killing you."

"I'm fine," Madge assured her quickly, before Lakshmi could flip her over and administer the ice-hot salve to said glutes. She waved her arms as if to prove her point. "Thank you."

Delly handed her some ibuprofen and a glass of water. "Here, you should take this. The boys are being all macho, but they'll come begging for it soon enough."

"Maybe I should offer _them_ a massage," Lakshmi said dreamily. "I bet they won't mind some Tiger Balm on the bum."

Madge nearly choked on the water.

"May I remind you," Delly said to Lakshmi dryly, "that you are engaged to be married."

"What's a massage among friends?" Lakshmi said, fluttering her long eyelashes innocently.

Delly changed the subject. "Are you going to be all right for tonight, Madge?"

Madge's sheer exhaustion notwithstanding, it wasn't her biggest worry as far as the Inferno Festival was concerned. Privately, she was afraid for her eardrums, and more than a little intimidated at the idea of going. But Thom and Delly were so genuinely excited about it, Madge didn't have the heart to turn them down. It helped that they'd promised the lineup that night was mostly going to be symphonic metal—bands that used orchestral arrangements, and were usually fronted by classically trained female singers—and folk metal, bands that used traditional instruments and wrote songs about traditional themes. Besides, Madge rationalized, she could think of it in anthropological terms: the musical and recreational preferences of modern-day Vikings.

"I'm more worried about getting trampled," Madge admitted. "Won't it get… rowdy?"

"In the mosh pit, yes," Delly acknowledged. "Where we'll be standing, it won't be a problem. We Norwegians love our personal space. You might not notice it on a tram at rush hour, but it's true."

Lakshmi replaced the lid on the Tiger Balm and placed it on the nightstand. "That's good to know, but what are we going to _wear_ , Dell?"

"I told you, it doesn't matter," Delly insisted. "You just show up and enjoy the music. Wear black if you want to blend in, but nobody will really care."

Lakshmi smoothed an imaginary wrinkle out of the dress she was wearing. "This is the only black thing I own."

At first Madge assumed the symbol emblazoned across the front of Lakshmi's dress was a band logo, but upon closer inspection she realized it wasn't. "Is that the Deathly Hallows from Harry Potter?"

"Correct!" Lakshmi giggled. "What do you think? Will I get kicked out for being super nerdy?"

"Are you kidding?" Delly said. "Harry Potter is hardcore."

"I guess that's settled, then." Lakshmi flopped over onto her stomach and gazed up at Madge with her big brown eyes. "What about you?"

Madge hadn't really given it much thought. "I have black jeans."

Lakshmi scoffed. "You're so tall and gorgeous, Madge. You should make more of an effort." She sat bolt upright. "I have an idea."

She dashed out of the room.

"How was your sailing lesson?" Delly asked Madge, sitting on Thom's bed in the space Lakshmi had just vacated.

"It was incredible," Madge replied with a smile. "You should have come with us."

"I wanted to," Delly said regretfully, picking up one of the pillows and hugging it to her chest. "But I had a meeting I couldn't reschedule. Anyway, I've been a couple of times already. How's Floki doing these days?"

"He seems pretty spry. He did a backflip off the boom, and he did it so casually, too. It was the coolest thing ever." Madge fingered her necklace. "He was kind of scary sometimes, though."

"He _is_ full on, isn't he?"

"Yeah. Does he practice paganism or something?"

"Sort of. Floki's belief system defies any label you try to put on it," Delly noted wryly. "But he's a genius, obviously, and a good guy underneath all that eyeliner."

Delly was about to say something else when Lakshmi reappeared, dragging Gale by the arm. Thom followed close behind, looking highly amused at the spectacle of his friend being manhandled by someone nearly half his size.

"What's going on?" Gale demanded. "I thought this was for girls only."

Lakshmi planted her hands on her hips. "Take your shirt off."

He clutched protectively at his plaid flannel shirt. "What?"

"Take your shirt off. It's for Madge."

Gray eyes met blue. " _What_?" Gale and Madge exclaimed.

"I _mean_ , I want to see how your shirt looks on Madge." Lakshmi tapped her foot impatiently. "Don't be such a big baby, la. You still have a T-shirt on underneath."

After a little more wheedling, Lakshmi managed to get the flannel off Gale's back. Once that was accomplished, she shooed the boys away, saying ominously: "This is not for mortal men to see."

"Why didn't you borrow one of Thom's shirts?" Delly asked Lakshmi as they helped Madge undress. "This is his room; there's a whole closet full of them over there. And he has a nice denim one that would look great on Madge."

Lakshmi clicked her tongue. "There is a method to the madness, Madeleine. Trust me."

It took a while—Madge was still a little sore, and none of them wanted to get Tiger Balm stains on anything—but soon she was stripped down to her underwear. "I feel like I'm playing with a life-sized Barbie," Lakshmi remarked.

Madge crossed her arms over her chest self-consciously. "If anyone's a life-sized Barbie, it's Delly."

At first Lakshmi draped Gale's shirt around Madge like a strapless dress, arranging the sleeves strategically over her breasts to create a sweetheart neckline. In the end, she decided against it, opting instead to style it like a normal button-down shirt—albeit one that was several sizes too large—with the sleeves rolled up to Madge's elbows and the hem hanging down to her thighs.

Madge looked down at her bare legs. At the very least, she was going to get a kick out of telling Annie that she once wore a shirt of Gale's with hardly anything else on underneath.

But she didn't stay pantsless for long. Lakshmi pawed through the armful of clothes Madge had brought from Iceland and found a pair of black cutoff jean shorts, as well as a pair of black thigh-high socks that she declared would go perfectly with Gale's shirt.

Lakshmi stepped back to admire her handiwork. "Just nice." She opened the door, stuck her head out, and yelled at Gale. "Madge is going to wear your shirt to Inferno, is that all right?"

"Do I have a choice?" Gale yelled back from the living room.

"Nope!"

"Do _I_ have a choice?" Madge joked.

Lakshmi adjusted the angle of the full-length mirror. "Don't you like it?"

"I do." Madge tugged at the cuffed sleeve of Gale's shirt as she peered at her reflection. The material was impossibly soft, and it smelled just like him—like that fresh, forest scent Gale always had around him. "I love it."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

About an hour before the concert, the doorbell rang.

"Froggy?" Delly called from her bedroom. "Could you get that, please?"

"Okay!" Thom shouted back from the kitchen, where he was checking on the frozen pizzas he'd popped into the oven earlier. That was about as much effort as anyone was willing to put into dinner that night.

By the time he reached the living room, however, Gale had already opened the front door, and there was a group of four boys huddled together on the other side of it.

"Are you Thom?" one of them wanted to know, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at Gale.

"No…" Gale responded, looking baffled as to why some Norwegian kid with the slightest trace of a northern English accent would think he was.

Thom swooped in. "That'd be me," he said, smiling warmly and extending his hand for the new arrival to shake. "Alfie, right?" He recognized Delly's brother from their most recent family portrait, which was framed and displayed on the mantelpiece. In person, the resemblance was even more clear, especially when it came to their eyes. " _Hyggelig å endelig møte deg_." _Nice to finally meet you._

Alfie looked pleasantly surprised. " _Endelig_ ," he echoed, grasping Thom's hand. " _Du snakker norsk_?"

" _Bare litt_." _Just a little._ "I've been taking lessons. There's a language program at the office."

Alfie nodded, lifting his eyebrows and pursing his lips as if to say, _not bad._ "Most Americans here don't bother. Everyone speaks English, especially in Oslo, so there's not much reason to learn."

"This particular American has plenty of reasons to learn," Gale deadpanned.

Thom quickly ushered Delly's brother and his friends into the apartment. "I _like_ learning languages, and it's easier once you know more than one," he said, throwing Gale a murderous look once Alfie's back was turned. "My parents are from Montreal, in Canada. We spoke French at home."

Then, nonchalantly, he added: "By the way, this is my friend Gale. He's American, too, but he just got a job in Stockholm."

The boys were untying their shoelaces, but at the mention of the Swedish capital, they all groaned in unison—just as Thom knew they would.

"I'm so sorry," Alfie said gravely, looking at Gale and shaking his head in pity.

Gale shut the door behind him. "What's wrong with Stockholm?"

"Well, Swedes are just Danes with their heads kicked in, _ikke sant_?" Alfie replied matter-of-factly. He toed off his shoes and arranged them on the rack along with everyone else's.

Thom grinned, congratulating himself on successfully maneuvering the conversation away from his motivation for learning Norwegian.

"Alfie? What are you doing here?"

_Speaking of motivation…_

Thom turned in the direction of Delly's voice, and the smile died on his lips.

He'd never seen her dressed for a night out before. None of them were into the club scene, and it was only now that the spring/summer events were starting to pick up. When they went out, they went out during the day, and they spent their evenings cooking and watching TV. And while Delly vegging out in hot pink sweatpants or Cookie Monster pajamas was the cutest thing in the world, if he'd known she also had outfits like _this_ …

For starters, she was dressed in black from head to toe. Black skinny jeans with zippers going all the way up the sides of her legs. Black gauntlets tied up with silk ribbons around her forearms. And, last but certainly not the least, a matte black leather top that Thom had a vague idea was called a corset, but which he could only describe as a riot of straps, chains, and buckles that simultaneously concealed and revealed his roommate's unexpectedly killer curves.

Thom felt his Adam's apple bob in his throat.

He wasn't the only one who noticed. After a few seconds of stunned silence, Alfie's friends all started talking at the same time.

"Wow."

" _Herregud_."

"I knew your sister was hot, Cartwright, but _damn_."

Alfie glared at the source of the last comment. " _Dra til helvete_." _Go to hell._

If Delly was at all bothered by the attention, she didn't show it. "I thought we were meeting at the concert."

"We had such a good time with Lakshmi the other day, we couldn't wait to meet your other new friends." Alfie held up two six-packs of beer and addressed Thom and Gale directly. "What do you say, Americans? _Vorspiel_?"

"I'm all for pre-drinking in any language," Gale said, eyeing the beer in approval.

Alfie's eyes gleamed with mischief. "It _means_ pre-drinking, here. Although technically  _vorspiel_ translates to—well, I'll let Thom explain that one."

Delly rolled her eyes at her brother's antics, but Alfie was waiting for Thom to answer, so he did.

"Foreplay," Thom said, swallowing hard. "It translates to foreplay."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

"I don't _care_ if it's ironic," Alfie said, exasperated. "We're not calling it _Kim Jong Bil_!"

" _Festbrems_ ," Lars muttered. _Party pooper._

"You still don't have a name for your Russebil?" Delly said as she came back from the kitchen with another six-pack of Ringnes. One of the cardinal rules of _vorspiel_  was to never drink someone else's booze, which meant the beer Alfie and his friends brought was off limits to everyone else.

"All the good names are taken," Alfie complained. "And most of the bad ones, too."

Delly stepped gingerly over Madge and Gale's legs and found a spot on the sofa between Lakshmi and Thom. "I'm sure the four of you can think of something."

"Is this for the van?" Madge sat up straighter. Thom had explained Russefeiring to her and Gale when they first arrived in Oslo. "Maybe we can help. How do people usually come up with names?"

"It's totally random sometimes," Pawel replied. "People usually think pop culture, current events, their interests. My girlfriend, she volunteers for an environmental charity, so she named hers _Globil Warming_. It's a bad pun, but for a good cause. The van runs on used cooking oil."

"It doesn't have to be a pun," Anwar chimed in. "We have classmates who are really into theater, so their Russebil is named _De unges Forbund_. It means 'The League of Youth'—that's a play by Ibsen."

Lakshmi reached for the bottle opener. "Well, what are you guys interested in?"

The boys were at a loss for words. "Drinking?" Lars said with a shrug. "We like drinking."

"And metal," Alfie said decisively. "We definitely like that."

Madge studied the label on her beer. " _Øl_ is Norwegian for beer, right?" She twisted a strand of hair around her finger thoughtfully. "What about _Ølhalla_? As in Valhalla."

The boys had tripped all over themselves when they met Madge, but now they were gaping at her for another reason entirely.

"Um, I guess the Norse warrior afterlife isn't the most appropriate theme for high school graduation," she hedged. "Or is it offensive? I'm sorry if it's offensive. I was just thinking, you know, heavy metal and Vikings—"

"I like it," Lars said, looking at the blonde with admiration.

"Why didn't we think of that?" Alfie groused.

"Maybe you would have, if you didn't waste your time making up puns about a North Korean dictator you know nothing about and who has nothing to do with your Russ," Delly said pointedly. "Honestly, if Dad or his embassy friends ever heard—"

"That was Lars!" Alfie protested. "If you recall, I voted _against_ it two minutes ago."

"Speaking of voting…" Anwar held up his hand. "All in favor of _Ølhalla_?"

Alfie, Lars, and Pawel raised their hands.

"We have ourselves a name," Pawel said in satisfaction. " _Endelig_."

"Good job," Gale said to Madge, clinking his bottle with hers.

"Hey! No cheers-ing by yourselves," Alfie objected. "We all have to do it together."

Everyone got on their feet and clustered closer together around the coffee table. As the de facto host, Delly gave the toast, making eye contact with each person in turn. "Here's to our visitors, Madge and Gale," she began as she raised her drink in their direction.

"Here's to a night of good, _legal_ fun," she continued, glancing meaningfully at her brother.

Alfie pointed to himself and pretended to look aghast as he mouthed, _Who, me?_

Delly resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him. "Last but not least," she said solemnly, "here's to a night of _mind-blowing, face-melting_ _rock_."

She looked up at Thom standing by her side, his lips quirked up in a lopsided smile. It had caught her off guard, how much she missed him today. She missed him coming round to her office for tea, missed running into him in the corridor unexpectedly. More than once she had reached out for Cookie Monster and held him in silence, thinking about how Thom made her laugh. How he made her feel like she was enough. Like she had always been, and would forever be, enough.

"I thought he was just a huge flirt when he first came here, but he really _is_ romantic, isn't he?" Lene had gushed at the water cooler earlier. "He already sent in his application. He just wants to be with the woman he loves."

Delly had nodded and pretended to know what Lene was talking about. Later, at her desk, she checked the job openings on the company portal. The very first vacancy listed for Thom's position was for their new office in Seattle.

Alfie and his friends were looking at her expectantly, so she forced herself to smile brightly. " _Skål_ ," she finished, the word catching in her throat.

" _Skål_ ," Thom echoed as their bottles kissed. His gray eyes were soft as he held her gaze, and it wasn't just because of Scandinavian drinking etiquette that she couldn't look away.

He would make Madge very, very happy someday.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Beer paled in comparison to the brennivín Madge had in Iceland, but before she even finished her first bottle, she was already buzzed. It made her talk just a little bit louder, laugh just a little bit harder. And when Delly's brother started pontificating on a subject that had never once intrigued Madge in the slightest—namely, every heavy metal subgenre in existence—she leaned in just a little bit closer, and listened with rapt attention.

"So Norway is famous for black metal, and Sweden is famous for death metal," Alfie was saying, ticking them off his fingers as he helped himself to more pizza. "There's also doom—that's big in Finland—then there's sludge, speed, thrash, and industrial, not to mention goth, melodic, symphonic, and folk… there's post-metal, not to be confused with post-rock or prog rock… then you have the sub- _sub_ genres like metalcore, grindcore, metal _grind_ … mathcore, electronicore…"

"Mathcore?" Gale repeated. "What the hell is that?"

"It's metal mixed with punk, but they play around with time signatures and stuff," Thom explained. "I'm not a huge fan, personally. I like that they're experimenting, and there are some bands that are really good, but sometimes it can get too self-indulgent… too complex for the sake of complexity."

"But it's all so angry," Lakshmi commented. "Why are these bands so angry?"

"It's the winter, I think," Anwar laughed. "If you had to live through Norwegian winters year in and year out, you'd be angry, too."

"Maybe it's the Viking thing," Lars suggested idly as he scrolled through the music on his phone. He had commandeered the living room sound system and was shuffling through what seemed to be his entire iTunes library, playing a few seconds of each song before frowning in dissatisfaction and skipping to the next one.

"Could be," Pawel agreed. "The electric guitar is the new axe. Literally."

"But the Vikings had a tough life," Lakshmi reasoned. "You guys don't. Norway has all that oil money, a welfare state…"

"Maybe that's why," Delly mused. "We don't have the problems our ancestors used to have, or the problems so many other people around the world _still_ have. But we also need to vent every now and then. We want to scream and freak out, even though we're brought up to feel like we can't, or shouldn't, because it's not polite, because our problems are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. So when we hear music that gives us catharsis… music that lets us do away with our guilt and our hang-ups even just for a while… it resonates with us, I think. Does that make sense?"

"It does," Madge said. She only had to look at Gale and Thom to know it was true. Between the two of them, she had assumed that aggressive music would be more up Gale's alley instead of Thom's. She never would have expected it of Thom, the same way she never would have expected it of Delly. But maybe the fact that Gale was more comfortable expressing his anger, explained why he didn't go looking for excessive amounts of it in his music.

Lakshmi turned to Madge. "What music do _you_ like?"

All of a sudden, the spotlight was on Madge. "Me?" Somehow, she didn't think Alfie and his friends would be impressed by nearly two decades of classical piano, so she decided on a different approach—one that might give her a little more credibility in the eyes of eighteen-year-old metalheads. "Well, I'm from Seattle."

That was all they needed to know. "You mean like this?" Lars said, turning up the volume on the sound system.

The strumming of a lone guitar blasted out of the speakers. _F–Bb–Ab–Db._ Madge would know that opening riff anywhere. Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit".

All hell broke loose. " _Fuck_ _yeah_ ," Alfie hollered, jumping onto the couch in his stockinged feet. By the time the drums and the distortion kicked in, so loud that Madge felt the reverberations in her chest, his friends had done the same.

"Come on!" Lakshmi held her hand out to Madge and grinned impishly. "Come dance to the song of your people."

Laughing, Madge let Lakshmi pull her to her feet and to the space in front of the fireplace that had spontaneously transformed into a dance floor. She closed her eyes and swayed, luxuriating in the feeling of her hair falling into her face, Kurt Cobain's plaintive whine surrounding her like an embrace.

Soon the song was building up to the chorus, but Gale was still on the couch. Madge tilted her head and curled one index finger and then the other at him, giving him her best, sauciest _come hither_ expression. " _Hello, hello, hello_."

He put up a fight. " _Hell no_."

Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was the bass line she could feel in her bones, maybe it was the fact that she was over four thousand miles away from home. Whatever it was, it made Madge saunter over to Gale, bend down, and put her lips right up to his ear. "I won't give you your shirt back if you don't dance with me!"

He drained what was left of his beer and slammed the bottle down on the table. "You drive a hard bargain, Undersee."

It wasn't so much dancing as it was a hilarious mix of jumping and head-banging, but Gale threw himself into it so energetically that Madge couldn't stop laughing.

Thom appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and launched himself onto Gale's back. " _Here we are now_!" he half-sang, half-screamed. " _Entertain us_!"

Gale wrestled him to the ground, but soon they were on their feet again, playing air guitar, taking running leaps at each other and bumping chests in mid-air, shouting the lyrics at the top of their lungs.

When was the last time she had danced to this song? Sixth grade? Seventh? It had just been Madge and Annie back then, the two of them attempting to choreograph contemporary routines to Rafe's old grunge albums. They'd ended up jumping up and down on Annie's bed, holding hairbrushes like microphones, instead. It was such a small, simple memory, but it meant everything to Madge. It felt good to let her hair down that day. It felt good to let her hair down now.

An arm wrapped around her waist from her right side, followed by another from her left side. Lakshmi and Delly. Together they bounced up and down in time to the music, throwing their heads back and singing along.

And Madge kept on laughing, and smiling, the alcohol warming her belly, that _koselig_ feeling Delly kept talking about warming her cheeks. Maybe the feeling wouldn't last. Maybe that moment, like everything else, was temporary and fleeting. But she was grateful for it, and grateful for the chance to make memories. So in that moment, she gave in, and lost herself in the song, and just let herself be what she was supposed to be.

Young, wild, and free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The guest appearance of a mellower, more tolerant Floki—complete with Super Cool Backflip™ stolen from Ragnar—is a hat tip and thank you to **Solaryllis** , who provided valuable feedback on the rowing scene.
> 
> Norwegian: _jeg ser etter_ = I'm looking for; _herregud_ = Lord God. ( _Forspill_ is related to the German _Vorspiel_.)  EDITED TO ADD: In the text, I've changed the sexual _forspill_ to the non-sexual _vorspiel_ (lower case, to distinguish it from the German _Vorspiel_ which is definitely sexual). But I kept the chapter title because I feel it's still appropriate, not to mention Alfie-level cheeky. [Thank you **MockingJayFlyingFree**!](http://archiveofourown.org/comments/58722634)
> 
> French: _ciboire_ = the container for _l'ostie_
> 
> In _Enthralled_ , I played with the alliteration aspect of Old Norse poetry. This time, I used kennings (established skaldic metaphors). For example: _ale-brewer_ , _ship-destroyer_ = Ægir; _bones of the earth_ = rocks; _Rán's bed_ = the bottom of the sea.
> 
>  _Never-silent_ , _howler_ , and _squall-maker_ refer to the wind, and this reminds me of Finn's nickname for Gæl in _Enthralled_. Geilir/Gellir can also mean "yeller, screamer", and I'd like to think that has to do with the "gale = wind" equivalence.
> 
> There are other aspects of Scandinavian drinking etiquette that weren't covered here, but we'll go into those things as the story shifts to Copenhagen and, later, Stockholm.
> 
> Finally, my sincerest apologies to Swedish friends and readers for Alfie Cartwright's joke ^_^;; Please feel free to share your favorite Norwegian (or Danish/Icelandic/Finnish) jokes for upcoming chapters. Long-term spoiler: the gang watches Eurovision.


	16. Nyforelsket (Newly In Love)

After a couple more songs—and a chaotic, spur-of-the-moment Skype call to Bristel back in St. Paul—someone finally remembered that they had a live concert to go to. This resulted in another flurry of activity as beer bottles and pizza boxes were put away, and a minor traffic jam by the door as people pulled on their shoes and coats.

Once outside, their group decided to forego the tram. Instead, they headed down the road that would take them to the Aker river and, beyond that, the Oslo city center. On foot, it would take ten, not more than fifteen minutes to get to the Inferno Festival at the Rockefeller Music Hall.

"Fucking Nirvana, man," Gale was saying as they set off. "Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden… can you believe all of that was over twenty years ago?"

"See, that's why we're taking you to this concert, Grandpa," Thom teased him. "Between grunge and classic rock, I can't remember you ever listening to music from _this_ millennium."

Gale retaliated by driving his shoulder into Thom's, hockey style, but Thom planted his feet and held his ground. "You _are_ getting old. That check was weak."

"Screw you, Devereux."

Thom's eyebrows shot up in amusement. "That's unsportsmanlike conduct. Two minutes, number forty-two, Hawthorne."

"Two minutes? It wasn't even a real swear!"

"Go cry in the box."

Madge playfully poked Gale in the ribs. "Why is it always about hockey with you two? You were talking about the playoffs the whole way back from the harbor. Don't you ever get tired of it?" She rolled her eyes good-naturedly at the ensuing protestations of _how dare you, hockey is life_ (Gale) and _is it too much to ask for the Habs to win the Cup again in my lifetime_ (Thom), before she returned to the conversation she was having with Lakshmi.

"Anyway, back to Nirvana," Madge continued. "I was wondering. Does it bother you that Kurt Cobain named his band after something he probably didn't understand?"

"Well, _nirvana_ means 'blown out' in Sanskrit," Lakshmi replied. "I say he took it a little _too_ seriously."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Gale had Thom's head under his arm, but at this he let go and held his hands up. "Too soon."

"Is it?" Lakshmi grinned. "It's been twenty years, what. You said so yourself."

"Yeah, but still." Gale put his arm around Madge and covered her ears with his hands. "Too soon."

Alfie shook his head. "Kurt Cobain fucking _nirvana_ 'd his own brains out." He popped the lid open on an Altoids tin. "How's that for irony?"

Instead of mints, the tin contained an array of short, skinny hand-rolled cigarettes. Delly eyed it warily. "Alfred Samuel Cartwright, is that what I think it is?"

"It's not a spliff, Dell. It's just tobacco. Perfectly legal, like." Alfie turned back to Lakshmi. "Hang on. So what does 'blown out' have to do with Indian heaven?"

"Alfie!"

Lakshmi laughed. "It's fine, Dell. Hmm… how to say." She bit her lip pensively. "First of all, it's not heaven, actually. And it's not strictly Indian also. It's more of a Buddhist thing—in Singapore, most Buddhists are Chinese. I was raised Hindu, and we have something similar to nirvana, though not exactly. But, my fiancé is Buddhist. I can try to explain."

She fell silent for a moment, her fingers worrying at the buttons on her wool trench coat as she walked. "Think of yourself… as being trapped in a cycle of death and rebirth. Or, we _think_ it's death and rebirth, because of our limited understanding. Nirvana is freedom from that cycle. We achieve it by blowing out, or extinguishing, the thoughts that cause our suffering. Like our obsession with things that don't matter, and our indifference to the things that do. If we blow out those thoughts, we find enlightenment and peace. _That's_ nirvana."

Lars nudged Anwar. "How come you never talk about this stuff?"

Anwar gave him a withering look. "Maybe because I'm _Muslim_?"

"So, wait," Pawel said, ignoring his friends. "That means if you die after achieving nirvana, you won't be reincarnated anymore?"

"That's right," Lakshmi said cautiously. "Though reincarnation is probably not the best word for it in the first place. It's like… water. A drop of water isn't a reincarnation of the ocean. Correct or not?" She paused. "Anyway, our life force—whether you think of it as a soul, a self, or a not-self like Buddhists believe—it's always wandering through what we understand as time and space. What we perceive to be lifetimes and states of existence. But when it reaches nirvana, it stops." She smiled. "It stops wandering, because it finally found what it was looking for."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

"All this talk is making my head hurt," Alfie mumbled, awkwardly forming the words around the cigarette already dangling from the corner of his mouth. He patted the pockets of his jeans and groaned. " _Faen_. Lars, d'you have my lighter?"

Lars shrugged. "Last time I saw it, it was in your room with the weed."

"For fuck's _sake_." Alfie took the cigarette out of his mouth in exasperation. He glanced hopefully at his sister. "Hey Dell, you still carry your _tennstål_ around everywhere, right? I'm desperate."

Thom reached into his leather jacket. "Here, use mine."

When he said that, Delly assumed he was talking about his own _tennstål_ —the two-piece flint and steel firestarter she'd given him to use as a keychain when he first arrived in Norway. But she was wrong.

"Thomas!" Delly squeaked. She stopped dead in her tracks, bringing everyone else to a standstill. She stared in horror at the lighter in Thom's hand. "You _smoke_?"

Thom immediately looked guilty. "Sometimes."

"But it's so bad for you!" Delly knew she sounded like a mouse being stabbed with a fork, but she didn't care. She expected this of her brother, but _Thom_?

"I know it is," he said, trying to defend himself, but not looking completely committed to the idea, either. "That's why I don't do it that often."

"He's telling the truth, Delly," Gale interjected. "A few times a year, tops."

She glared at him. "So you've been letting Thomas destroy his lungs for _years_?"

A voice inside Delly's head chastised her. _Give Gale the benefit of the doubt. You haven't gotten Alfie to stop smoking, either._ But she was too distressed to listen. Why was Thom taking his health for granted like this? How could Gale just stand by and let him?

Madge spoke up. "Delly," she began, in a tone that was both gentle and pragmatic, "I'm sure Gale wants Thom to quit smoking, too."

_Don't defend him!_ Madge should be looking out for Thom, not defending Gale. _Why are you defending him?_

A sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach told her she already knew why.

From the very beginning, Delly had thought she detected something between their houseguests—something like an aura of suppressed attraction. She'd been tempted to bring it up with Thom, especially that day at the park, but she ended up asking him about Glimmer instead. She didn't ask about Gale and Madge because, well, she didn't trust her own instincts when it came to relationships. If Thom didn't notice anything, then it was probably just her paranoia acting up again. Besides, even if she were right, what did it matter? Once Madge got to know Thom better, surely she would make the same choice Delly would make, if _she_ had to choose between Gale and Thom.

_I would choose Thom._ Her eyes blurred with tears. _Over Gale, over Kalf, over anyone. I would_ always _choose Thom._

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

After Gale and Madge, Lakshmi was the next one to come to Thom's defense. "He's a grown man, Madeleine," she reminded her roommate. "He can do whatever he wants. He isn't hurting anyone but himself." She threaded her arm through Delly's. "Come on, let's keep going. You can freak out all you want at the concert."

Lakshmi gave Thom a sympathetic look as she led Delly away. He wanted to say something, but he could only stand there, speechless, as one by one the others trudged past him.

There was a hand on his shoulder. Gale. "You all right, buddy?"

"No." Thom sighed wearily. "I need a moment. You and Madge go ahead."

Gale looked at him doubtfully.

"Just _go_ , Hawthorne."

Soon, however, even Thom had to pick up his feet and follow the others. They continued the trek to Inferno, but unlike before the group was now split into fragments, with Delly and Lakshmi several feet ahead of the rest, and with Alfie keeping Thom company at the rear. The air was heavy with unease.

Alfie scratched the back of his head. " _Jøss_. I've never seen her like that. Not even with me, and she hates it when I smoke." His eyes darted toward the lighter still clenched tightly in Thom's hand. "So, erm, can I borrow that or… ?"

Thom knew the last thing he needed was to risk the ire of another Cartwright, but he couldn't help himself. "Can't you see how upset she is?" he snapped. " _Crisse_. I fucked up this time, but if you knew she hated it so much, why keep doing it in front of her?"

Alfie looked surprised at the outburst, but he acquiesced and put his unlit cigarette back in its makeshift case. "Are you saying I should smoke behind her _back_?"

"I'm saying, stop making your sister think that her feelings don't matter to you." Thom passed a hand over his face. "I'm out of line. I'm sorry. This is all my fault, not yours."

"What is it with you Canadians?" Alfie wondered aloud as he pocketed the case. "No need to apologize, Too–Muh. I deserved it."

Thom frowned. "What did you call me?"

"I thought you said your parents were Canadian?"

"Not that. You called me… Too–Muh." He'd heard it before, he was sure of it. He just couldn't remember where. Even in his current miserable state, it nagged at him like an itch he couldn't scratch.

"Oh, that? It's more of a family name around here, but I reckon it suits you," Alfie replied. "It's spelled T-H-O-M-E. Thome."

_Oh._ That explained it. His parents called him Thomé, when he was younger. Much, much younger, before the cracks started to show in their marriage. It sounded different in French.

Thom pushed the thought aside before memories of his parents in happier times made him feel worse. He wasn't sure that was even possible, but he didn't want to find out. Right now, he needed to focus on fixing things with Delly. "How angry is she, you think?"

"She'll be fine." Alfie draped an arm around Thom's shoulder. "Just wait, let her calm down a bit, give her the old puppy dog eyes later. Always works for me."

"Of course it works for you. You're her brother. She can't stay mad at you. Me, not so much."

Alfie chuckled wryly. "Oh, Thome. _Du ble født bak en brunost, ikke sant_?" _You were born behind a brown cheese, weren't you?_

"What do you mean?"

"It means you're slow."

"I know what the _expression_ means," Thom replied testily. Delly had taught it to him the first time they had breakfast together, after he moved in.

Thom thought back to yesterday morning, to the breakfast note they had left for Gale and Madge. Delly had always been appalled at his insistence on pairing brunost with roast beef, and he'd always thought that was ironic. After all, it was the perfect mix of Norwegian and English. Just like Delly.

"I know what it means," Thom repeated. "What do _you_ mean?"

Alfie tightened his grip, hooking Thom's neck in the crook of his elbow and tugging down until they were the same height. "If you had already worked out how my sister feels about you," he said, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "you wouldn't be asking me that question."

Thom's heart skipped a beat. Lene had given him hope, but this time it was coming from Delly's brother. "Did she tell you—"

"No. But the way she talked about you the other day made me wonder. Brother's intuition, I s'pose." Alfie knowingly tapped the side of his nose. "That's why the lads and I came round… I wanted to see what you were like. So I did. I came, I saw. And what a sight it was." He jabbed a finger into Thom's chest, right above his heart. "You're mad for my sister, Thome. And my sister's mad for _you_."

Thom disengaged himself from Alfie. "I have to talk to her."

" _Din jævla idiot_!" Alfie caught the sleeve of Thom's jacket and tried to yank him back. "You fucking idiot! Not now—she's still cheesed off, you berk. I said _wait_!"

"I've waited long enough," Thom said. "I'm not waiting any longer."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

"Can we talk?"

Delly hurriedly brushed a stray tear from the corner of her eye as Thom jogged up to her. She knew that even if he hadn't spoken, even if she hadn't heard or seen him, she still would have known he was there. She would have sensed it from the way the air became scented, suddenly and ever so slightly, with leather and tea and apples. She would have sensed it from his warmth, the warmth she had come to recognize from the many times he'd reached into the cupboard above her while she was chopping something on the kitchen counter. When Thom was around, he filled her senses completely, but it wasn't until she was confronted with the possibility, the eventuality that one day he wouldn't be around anymore, that she realized why.

"Maybe later," she said stiffly.

Thom touched her arm. It was a light touch, light as a feather, but it was enough to freeze her in place. "Please, Delly."

She didn't respond. Instead, she zipped her motorcycle jacket all the way up, as if that would create a barrier between them. But it only reminded her of the look of absolute shock on his face earlier, when he saw her dressed up for the first time.

Inside her boots, her toes curled.

"Give him a chance, la," Lakshmi urged her. She had slowed to a stop, as well, and now the others were catching up to them.

"For the record, I told him to wait," Alfie declared as he ambled over. "But now that I think about it, you two would be sulking all night, and I don't need anything—what do Americans say? Hashing my buzz?"

"Harshing," Thom answered, using a tone of voice that was familiar to Delly. It was the resigned patience of someone who knew Alfie and, inexplicably, liked him anyway. "It's _harshing_ your buzz."

" _Harshing_? I s'pose that makes more sense. All this time I thought you lot were slandering hash. Why would hash be bad for your buzz? What did hashish ever do to you?"

Gale cleared his throat. "If we want them to talk, we should probably give them some privacy."

Alfie got the hint. "Just talk to Thome, all right, Dell? We'll wait for you at the coat check at Inferno." He dug out two tickets from his hoodie and handed them to Thom. "Or not. If the good stuff starts before you turn up, you're on your own."

And with that, they left Delly alone with Thom.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Delly watched their friends disappear into the distance. "If we miss anything good," she said, folding her arms across her chest, "it's on your head."

"It's a risk I'm willing to take." Thom licked his lips anxiously. "Please look at me, Delly."

Her jaw tightened, but she looked up. She looked up and glared at him. "Why is Alfie calling you _Thome_?"

"He just likes it, I guess." Thom wondered what it was in their DNA that compelled the Cartwright siblings to give him nicknames. "He gets that from you."

She narrowed her catlike eyes. "Are you two in some Best Friends and Smokers Forever Club that I don't know about?"

Thom reached up to adjust his glasses, only to remember that he'd put in his contacts for the concert. He dragged his hand through his hair instead. "I told you I was stupid."

"Not about this!" she burst out, with a vehemence that blindsided him. "Not about your health. Alfie, I can understand. Alfie's last word could be YOLO and no one would be surprised. But _you_ …" She faltered. "It's your responsibility, Thom, to live… for as long as you can."

"It is?"

"Yes!" Delly's hands dropped to her midsection, as if talking about it was paining her. "You think what you're doing isn't hurting anyone, because right now you're only living for yourself. But, one of these days, you're going to have kids. Kids who will need you to be around. Think about that, Thom. The family you've always wanted, you'll have it someday. You'll find someone. You'll be _so._ _Happy_." Her eyes shone. "You'll want to live forever."

_Tell her. Tell her now._ "But I already have," he said. "I have found someone."

Her face fell. "Of course you have," she said, sniffling. "Madge—once she realizes how lucky she would be to have you—"

"No. Not Madge." Thom took her hand, covered it with his own. "You."

As confusion flickered across Delly's face, Thom brushed his thumb across the skin on the back of her hand. It was soft, the softest he had ever touched. How could he not have noticed before? It was just like in his—

_No._ This wasn't his dream. This was better. This was real.

"I'm crazy about you, Dell. I didn't realize it right away, but other people did. Your brother took one look at me, and he knew. Gale called it, before he even met you." Thom squeezed her hand and said it again. "It's you."

Delly wavered. "But Lene said you were trying for—Seattle—"

Thom lifted his eyebrows. "Did Lene actually say Seattle?"

Delly hiccuped. "No…"

"She meant _here_. Ask Lene, ask Gale… I'm trying for Oslo, and nowhere else but Oslo. I don't know if I'll get the job, but I do know that wherever you are, that's where I want to be." He swallowed. "If you'll let me."

"Are you sure you're not just"— _hic_ —"feeling sorry for me because of"— _hic_ —"Kalf?"

"Don't say that, Dell. I don't care about Kalf. I care about you. If you could see yourself through my eyes, you'd know how amazing you are. You'd know what I'm saying is true."

Thom took a deep breath. Ever since he made up his mind to tell Delly, he had searched for the right way to say it. _Je t'adore_ , he would have said in the past. _Je t'aime._ After all, wasn't French the language of the heart? And, even if it weren't, it was the language of his heritage. The language of _his_ heart.

But now things were different, and those words didn't seem enough anymore. How could he say it, then? How could he make Delly understand how grateful he was, just knowing that she existed in this world?

Thom brought her hand to his lips, and looked in her beautiful brown eyes, and in that moment he knew. In that moment, it was as if the world had shifted, tilted on its axis, and he saw the answer, clear as day. The answer that—just like Delly herself—had been there, right in front of him, all this time.

" _Jeg er glad i deg_." _I am glad in you._ He had started learning Norwegian not too long ago, but the language wasn't foreign to him, because it was hers. It was the language of her heritage. The language of her heart. " _Jeg elsk—_ "

Delly stopped him before he could finish saying, _jeg elsker deg_. _I love you._ "We can work up to _elsker_ , don't you"— _hic_ —"think?" She blushed. " _Jeg er_ _glad i deg_ , _også_." _I am glad in you, too._

"We can work up to it," he agreed, relief flooding his veins now that he was certain she felt the same. "We _should_ work up to it."

Delly was right. Thom had thrown the words _love_ , _aimer_ , and _amour_ around for far too long. _Elsker_ was going to be different. He was going to earn the right to say _elsker_. Together, they could work up to _elsker_. Together, they would grow into _elsker_.

"I"— _hic_ —"I'm ruining the moment"— _hic_ —"aren't I?" She let out an embarrassed groan.

Thom laughed. "Not at all." He tugged on her hand, pulling her close to him. "But I bet you wish Cookie Monster were here now, so he could scare those hiccups out of you. You did promise to take him to Inferno, you know."

Delly scrunched up her face. "I said Cookie Monster, but"— _hic_ —"I meant you."

"Well, in that case." He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Cookie Monster promises to throw away his cigarettes and try very, very hard not to smoke anymore."

"Really?" _Hic_.

Another kiss, on the tip of her nose. "Anything for the pretty lady."

_Hic_. " _Calisse_." Delly smiled shyly. "I can learn your language, too." _Hic_. "Ugh! These hiccups just won't"— _hic_ —"go away!"

"Give them to me, then," he murmured against the side of her mouth. He cradled the nape of her neck, tangling his fingers in her dark hair. "I'll take care of them for you."

She half-giggled, half-hiccuped. "That's not going to work, froggy."

Later, however, Delly would eventually admit—with her breath hitching in her throat and her smile curving against Thom's ear—that it had worked very, very well indeed.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

When Thom and Delly showed up at the festival, about fifteen minutes after the rest of them did, Alfie was the one who spotted them first. "Jesus Christ, hurry up, will you? What did I tell you? _So_ slow!"

"What did we miss?" Delly asked as they walked up to their friends. There was no trace of the temporary awkwardness that her outburst had created earlier; only an easy camaraderie.

Alfie thrust his thumb over his shoulder at Gale. "This one kept making us say _uff da_."

"It's a legitimate thing that Scandinavians say!" Gale objected. "Well, the ones in Minnesota do. Some of them, anyway."

Madge laughed. "Apparently, it's not that big of a deal in the old country."

Gale looked imploringly at Thom. "You. Back me up here. Tell them I'm not making this up."

"This is true," Thom confirmed, exaggerating the vowels. He winked at Delly. "Yeah sure, you betcha."

Alfie's head swiveled from Thom, to Gale, then back again. "I have no idea what that was all about." He zeroed in on Thom's fingers interlaced with his sister's. " _That_ , on the other hand…"

The next thing anyone knew, Alfie had whipped out his phone and insinuated himself between Thom and Delly. "Family selfie!" he called out as he snapped a quick photo.

"I've always wanted an older brother," Alfie remarked as he inspected the picture he had just taken. "God, I can't wait for Dad to meet Thome. Whatever I do from now on, at least I wasn't the one who brought home a Frenchie." He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. "He'll go spare."

"No, he won't," Delly said quickly when she saw the look of alarm on Thom's face. "Dad used to be a diplomat, after all."

" _Used_ to be," Alfie cackled gleefully.

"Don't listen to him," Delly told Thom. "If anyone brings it up, I'll just say sometimes you have to kiss a frog to find a prince."

Alfie turned green. "Who said anything about kissing?"

Anwar chuckled. "Bro, you did _not_ think this through."

Thom planted a kiss on the top of Delly's head. "I'll check our jackets in," he offered, grinning at the sound of Alfie gagging in the background. "You stay here."

"No, I'll come with you," Delly said, throwing her brother a dirty look. " _Kjæreste_." _Sweetheart._

Lakshmi watched her roommates head for the coat check, hand in hand. " _Aiyoh_ ," she grumbled. "I have to live with _that_?"

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

How does one describe the first bloom of love? It is a tender glance, a tentative touch; a fluttering in the belly, a quickening of the pulse. It is euphoria, madness, intoxicating sweetness. It is the world bathed in a warm, honeyed glow. It is that time when everything is new; it is that thrill of knowing, _we have only just begun_. It is holding all possible futures in the palm of your hand. It is a fledgling bird leaving the safety of its nest, leaping, _falling_ , because that is how it learns to fly.

How does one capture the essence of new love? It seems impossible to distill, inconceivable to express. _Smitten_ gives it the appearance of an affliction. _Infatuated_ places limits where there should be none. Another word, then. A different word, one that conveys everything that it is, without denying everything that it could become.

The North has such a word.

There, in the land of the midnight sun and the northern lights, they have a word for it. Among the lakes and the plains, the forests and the fjords, _there_ , they have a name for it. There may be differences, on the tongue or on the page, but in the end it is the same, be you Norwegian, Swede, or Dane.

It is a word that speaks of rapturous bliss.

It is a word for love's genesis.

_Nyforelsket_.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

"I'm happy for them and everything," Gale said, later when they were in the main hall waiting for the concert to start. He was shouting above the low drone of the audience, almost directly into Madge's ear. "But why does this keep happening?" First it was Finn and Annie, now it was Thom and Delly.

"I know, right? We're two for two now." Madge held up two fingers for emphasis. "Two countries, two couples who got together while we were there."

"Good thing we're leaving for Denmark tomorrow." Gale thought of Johanna and Darius, waiting to welcome them to Copenhagen. "Ah, _shit_."

Madge giggled. "Yeah, Jo and Darius don't need any help from us." Her laughter faded, and she grew serious. "Hey, Gale… I know you were trying to help me, earlier." There was no chance of anyone overhearing, but she leaned into him anyway. "When we were talking about, um, Kurt Cobain. I appreciate it, but you don't have to protect me from every little thing. I'm used to hiding how I feel."

She sounded almost guilty about it. As if her grief were an inconvenience she hated to saddle him with.

"I just… you were having so much fun. I didn't want anything to ruin it, you know?" Gale angled his body to shield her from a big, burly guy with a bushy blond beard who was making his way to the front. "But don't get me wrong, Madge. I don't _want_ you to hide how you feel."

"If I don't hide how I feel, I won't be very good company. I'd be fine one second, but not the next. You'd waste a perfectly good trip on me."

After everything that she'd been through, Madge was worried about that? "You don't have to be good company. You just have to _be_." Someone jostled him from behind, and he steadied himself with a hand on her back. "I don't want you to be sad, but sometimes it's worse to fake being happy." He and Katniss had been happy together, once. He only wished they'd had the guts to admit it to each other, after the happiness had gone.

The corners of Madge's mouth turned down. "My dad was a politician. He always said to fake it 'til you make it."

_If you fake it, how can you fix it?_ "Well, you never have to fake it with me." He winced at the phrasing, and tried again. "I mean, if you want to let it all out, you never have to hide it from me."

"I guess that's what we're here for, right?" She gestured at their surroundings. "Catharsis. Release."

"Honestly?" Gale glanced over at Thom and Delly, who had started making out five minutes ago and hadn't come up for air since. Alfie had his back to the offending sight while he and the boys talked to Lakshmi. "I thought we were here to keep Mr. and Mrs. Metal company."

Madge followed his gaze. " _Uff da_."

Gale had to laugh. "That was pretty good. You should come to Minnesota."

"Maybe I'll visit you someday." She glanced sideways up at him. "Gale?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you. I don't think I've ever thanked you… for bringing me here."

"Thank _you_ ," he said, "for coming with me."

The house lights dimmed, and the crowd began to cheer.

Gale and Madge stood there, together in the darkness, waiting for the music to begin.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

_In the beginning, there was darkness._

_Darkness, shapelessness, endlessness. The expectant silence of the infinite holding its breath._

_Then—suddenly—light._

_A shaft of white light, throwing a lone figure in stark relief. A solitary figure hunched over a drum, hammering out a familiar rhythm, wooden mallet on animal skin._ One, two. _The pounding of a heart._ Three, four. _The crashing of waves._ Five, six. _The thrashing of oars._ Seven, eight. _The clashing of shields._ Nine. _The thunder of the gods._

_Wisps of smoke rose, slow and sinuous. There was a woman, humming, like bees buzzing, swarming. A man, chanting, wailing, ululating. Their voices were threads in a tapestry, weaving, folding in on itself, mesmerizing, hypnotizing._

What am I? _A drop in the ocean._

What am I? _A star in the sky._

What am I? _A speck of dust in Odin's blind eye._

_As the singing grew louder and the drumming picked up speed, other threads, other textures were layered in. The hollow soughing of the wind in the trees. The hoofbeats of a galloping steed. The dry rattle of a serpent's hiss; the clattering of rune-sticks. The fluttering trill of an ancient bone flute, black staccato beat of raven wing._

Who am I? _You are Yourself. (You are Not-Yourself.)_

Who am I? _You are One. (You are Many.)_

Who am I? _You are All. (You are None.)_

(Who)

(Am)

(I?)

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

It was dark when Madge woke up.

She rose up on her elbows, blinking as her eyes adjusted. It took a few seconds for her to remember where she was: Thom and Delly's apartment in Oslo. The phosphorescent green numbers of the alarm clock told her it was 3:09 a.m.

_A dream_. _It was just a dream_. Her mind, reeling from sensory overload, had replayed the music she'd heard at the concert, melded it with Floki's talk of Norse gods and Lakshmi's thoughts on Buddhism to give it a different meaning. _It was just a dream_.

_(Who am I?)_

Despite the coolness of the night, it felt like her body was on fire. She felt around on the nightstand for the glass of water she had put there before going to bed. She drank it all gratefully, savoring each drop as it trickled down her throat.

As she put the glass away again, her fingers brushed against the worn edges of a book. Grandpa Donner's book, the only one she didn't leave with Annie in Reykjavík. She wondered if Darius had already started working on it.

She turned the lamp on and thumbed through the pages. Everything was as incomprehensible as it had been on the first day she attempted to read it, back at her parents' house in Vostead. Everything, except for one sentence. The one sentence she had managed to translate, using Google, before she realized what a gargantuan task it was going to be.

_Vitoð ér enn, eða hvat?_ ( _Do you still seek to know? And what?)_

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Madge padded out into the hall, unable to sleep.

A sliver of light cut through the darkness. She had the sense that it was calling to her, beckoning to her. So, like a moth to a flame, she followed.

A gentle breeze chilled the sweat on her brow. She turned and saw the door to the balcony cracked open, the curtains rippling in the wind. And, beyond it, the shadow of a man standing tall and strong, his posture unbending and uncompromising.

Her heart lurched in her chest.

Gale.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

At first, he didn't think she was real.

One moment Gale was gazing up at a clear night sky, imagining what it would be like if Madge were there with him. The next moment she was standing in the doorway, illuminated by the pale glow of the moonlight.

She spoke. "Took a while for the stars to come out."

Miraculously, Gale found his voice. "It was worth the wait."

"Mind if I stay here for a while?"

"Stay for as long as you want." Gale wondered what Madge was doing awake, until he remembered who was in the room next to hers. "Please don't tell me Thom and Delly were keeping you up with weird heavy metal sex noises."

Madge laughed softly as she joined him on the balcony. "No, nothing like that." She rested her elbows on the railing. "I didn't hear a thing. I think they're asleep. Or maybe they're being very, um, considerate." She blushed. "What about you?"

"I just wanted to make the most of tonight." Their last night in Norway.

"I know what you mean." Madge leaned forward, a dreamy smile on her lips as she contemplated the streets of Grünerløkka. "Good night, Oslo," she murmured. "Goodbye."

She tilted her face up to the sky. "The stars are brighter than I expected. Considering we're in the city and all."

"It's the auto-dimming, auto-off street lighting Thom talked about, our first night here." Oslo's street lights were controlled by an astronomical clock and a network of sensors that measured ambient light, traffic, and other data. Thom and Delly's company had been involved in the retrofit. "It's a win-win-win. You save on electricity, reduce carbon emissions, plus you get darker skies, too." Gale decided to stop there before he went all engineering nerd on her again, the way he did at the opera house.

Fortunately, Madge didn't seem to mind. "That sounds really cool."

"It is."

A few moments passed in silence. It was a comfortable, companionable silence, but Gale decided to break it anyway, with something more relevant to Madge's interests. "Hey, you know what else is cool? These stars are millions, maybe even billions of years old. We could be looking at the exact same stars the Vikings were looking at, a thousand years ago."

It worked instantly. "That _is_ cool," she agreed, perking up visibly. "Though, now that you mention it, the Vikings didn't seem to have a lot of stories about the stars. When we were on the boat, Floki talked about the sun and the moon, but not the stars."

"I remember a few stories." Gale thought back to all the Norse lore he had ever heard about, read about, or otherwise absorbed. "I remember something about a toe."

Madge regarded him skeptically. "A toe?"

"Yeah. Thor broke off some guy's toe and put it in the sky."

"Of all the things you could've remembered, that's what stuck with you." She arched an eyebrow. "Some guy's toe."

He grinned sheepishly. "When you hear stories as a kid, you fixate on the weirdest things." Like his father telling him the German word for thunder.

She laughed again. "You're such a stinkfart."

Gale chuckled. The nickname was growing on him. "I'm sure there are more stories," he went on. "The Vikings used the stars to navigate, after all. Maybe the stories were so common, nobody bothered to write them down."

"Or maybe it was the opposite," Madge speculated with a twinkle in her eye. "Maybe astronomy was a secret, shrouded in mystery and entrusted only to a select few. Like the runes."

Gale studied the symbols on his ring. "You might be on to something there." He held his hand up against the sky. "They do look like constellations. Kind of. They're the right shapes."

Madge reached up, capturing his hand in both of hers. "That can't be," she said, bringing his ring to her face for a closer look. Her breath was warm on his knuckles. "The runes aren't constellations, or even stars. They're supposed to be the twigs Odin saw on the ground, when he hung himself from—"

"—Yggdrasil," Gale finished. The corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. "The world tree that grows through the nine realms."

Madge made the connection immediately. "Nine worlds," she breathed, her eyes wide. "Nine planets."

"Technically, Pluto is—"

" _Nine. Planets,_ " she repeated, punctuating each word with a squeeze of his hand.

"If you say so, princess," Gale said, squeezing back. "Anyway, if a tree was their metaphor for the universe, or even just our solar system… then maybe the twigs were their metaphor for the constellations."

Madge shook her head in disbelief. "Gale Hawthorne, did you just explain Norse astronomy?"

He shrugged. "Well, I _am_ pretty smart."

She dropped his hand. "And so humble, too." She turned away in a huff.

Gale scooted closer until their forearms were flush against each other on the railing. He nudged her with his hip. "I really am smart, though," he teased her. "I bet I can name more constellations than you. Winner gets to keep my shirt."

"Ha! Bet you didn't know Uncle Haymitch has his own telescope. That shirt is _mine_." Madge straightened up and started jabbing her finger at the sky. "Big Dipper." She used the distinctive seven-point shape to orient herself. "The North Star. Little Dipper."

Each time Madge pointed at a constellation, Gale followed suit, lining up his finger right next to hers. " _Ojiig_. _Giiwedin'anang_. _Maang_."

When Gale saw the quizzical look on Madge's face, he explained solemnly: "The Ojibwe have names for the stars, too." He wasn't fluent in Anishinaabemowin, not by a long shot, but over the years he had learned the names of the constellations. He repeated them for her now. " _Ojiig_ , the Fisher. _Giiwedin'anang_ , the North Star. _Maang_ , the Loon."

As the syllables rolled off his tongue, their meaning echoed in his heart. The words stirred something inside him, and he thought of his family: Rory and Vick howling at the full moon on a cloudless summer night, Posy dangling upside down from his arms, Edward and Hazelle cuddled together beneath a blanket of stars.

Madge looked very impressed. "That's beautiful."

Gale couldn't resist. "Also, the Ojibwe are so much better at astronomy than those dumb Vikings ever were," he added, all trace of gravitas gone.

"I swear, if it turns out you have Scandinavian blood, too…" Madge scanned the skies for more. "There! Cassiopeia, the queen. What do you call that, smartypants?"

Without thinking, Gale said, "Margaret."

Her eyes flashed. "Nice to know I've been upgraded from princess, but now you're just making it up."

"I said I could name the constellations. That's exactly what I'm doing," Gale reasoned. "Look, it's even shaped like an M."

She couldn't even let him have that. "It's clearly a W."

"Not if you see it the way I do. Here." Gale positioned himself behind Madge, putting his hands on her shoulders to make sure they were facing the same direction. With one eye screwed shut and his tongue sticking out slightly, he traced the stars that, from now on, would always remind him of her. "What do you see?"

"I see…" Madge trailed off, and Gale felt the rise and fall of her back against his chest as she sighed. "It doesn't matter what I see."

She was censoring herself again, but this time he wasn't going to let her. "Of course it matters."

Madge lifted her hand, as if reaching out to the heavens. "You said these stars could've been around when the Vikings were. But it's just as possible that some of these stars are already dead." Her voice was steady, but her body was trembling underneath his hands. "It's just as possible that, somewhere out there, some of these stars have already collapsed. But because their light has to travel for so long, and from so far away, we just don't know it yet." She let her arm fall back down her side helplessly. "We see lights in the sky, and we call them stars. But the lights we see aren't the stars themselves. The lights that we see… they're only memories of what the stars used to be."

Madge was withdrawing again, the way she had done in Iceland, on Jökulsárlón beach. So Gale did the same thing he had done then: he held her, wrapped himself around her, as if that would keep her anchored to him.

What could he say? _Come back, Madge_. _Come back to me._ But this Madge whose heart was suddenly so far away, she wouldn't hear it, wouldn't listen to it. He wondered if she would listen, if somehow he managed to say it in Old Norse, or in Anishinaabemowin.

That was when he realized that—in a way—he already _did_ say it.

"Remember what I said earlier?" Gale murmured into her hair. "The Ojibwe name for the North Star. _Giiwedin'anang_."

He felt, rather than heard, her muffled sob. "Yes."

"There are two parts to the name. _Anang_ means 'star'. _Giiwedin_ means 'north' or 'north wind'. But _giiwe_ also means that someone is going back… that someone is going home. And I think that's a beautiful name for a star. Because that's what stars do. They show us where we are, and where we should go. Then, when we're done exploring, they guide us on our way home." A lump formed in his throat. "Yes, some of these stars might be dead. But their light shines on, even after they're gone. Stars might die, but to us, they'll never go away. Not as long as we can use their light to find our way."

Madge twisted around to face him, and he saw the tears shimmering in her eyes. It was the first time he ever saw her cry. " _Gale_."

A teardrop rolled down her cheek. Tenderly, he brushed it away. "I can never understand even half of what you're going through, Madge—"

"And you shouldn't," Madge choked out. Her hand made a fist in his shirt. "You should never, ever understand it. Not even half of it. I won't let you."

Gale tightened his embrace. "But I can tell you that you're not alone. Wherever you go, wherever your wandering takes you, you'll never be alone. And, when you're ready, their light will lead you back home." He tucked a strand of golden hair behind her ear. "You're not alone, Madge. You're alive, and you're not alone."

She buried her face in his neck, and for a time he held her in silence, soothing her with long strokes of his hands up and down her back.

After a while, she gazed up at him. "Ask me again." The despair in her eyes was gone, replaced by something like quiet determination. "Ask me what I see when I look at the stars."

Whether it was gravity, or magnetism, Gale couldn't say. He could only say that something inexorable was pulling him toward Madge, and she wasn't pulling away.

"What do you see, Madge?"

"You, Gale." She breathed it out, and breathed him in. "I see you."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

It was like the rush of blood returning to a waking limb. His lips breathed life into her, _electrified_ her, made her surge up in his arms demanding more. Everywhere he touched her, she felt the heat of it burn into her skin. _Alive._ Every time he kissed her, she tasted the truth of it on his tongue. _Alive._

_Alive, and not alone._

He kissed her, and held her, so tightly that her toes cleared the floor. She kissed him, and pressed herself against him, so close that she could hear nothing but the rhythm of his heart and hers. _One, two._ Two hearts beating, learning to keep time to each other. _One, two._ Two souls meeting, discovering more about each other.

_(Who are you?) I am Wind._

_(Who am I?) You are Thunder._

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

_In the beginning, there was darkness._

_Darkness, shapelessness, endlessness. The expectant silence of the infinite holding its breath._

_The breath is released._

_The world ignites._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The stargazing scene is dedicated to everyone who has ever lost someone. Cattle die, kinsmen die, but the light of the ones you love will never die.
> 
> As always, I sincerely hope that I have portrayed all beliefs and cultures mentioned here with sensitivity, respect, and a degree of accuracy. If I have fallen short, I look forward to your suggestions for improvement.
> 
> _Tusen takk_ to **Solaryllis** for the much-needed counseling, logistics wrangling, and for keeping me from drowning in a sea of italics (yes, it was even worse before). Any residual weirdness is mine.
> 
> In Norwegian, _faen_ and _jævla_ are derived from words that mean "devil", but they are used as "damn" or "fuck". _Jøss_ means "geez". _Aiyoh_ is to Singaporeans as _uff da_ is to Scandinavian Americans.
> 
> _"Vitoð ér enn, eða hvat?"_ is the question the seeress asked Odin before she prophesied about Ragnarök.
> 
> For simplicity, I used the term "constellation" for the Big Dipper, etc. even though they are technically asterisms.
> 
> Whenever I write Gale as a hockey player, I give him the number 42 for Douglas Adams reasons. But I've recently also remembered that Gale also had 42 slips in the Reaping Bowl for the 74th Games.
> 
> [Playlist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTWKbfoikeg&list=PLL-gXYwZ1g8LQH4squTVMKswJ5iIpU3uN)


	17. Oppvåkning (Awakening)

_Copenhagen_

 

In the darkness before dawn, the sudden flash of light nearly blinded him.

Darius clutched at his eye, as if that would stop it from burning. _Hello, old friend._ The stinging pain—as if someone had blown dust in his eye and was rubbing it in—had been a constant companion back at university, back when he was losing several days of sleep at a time over his Old Norse texts. Fatigue, the doctors always said. Dehydration. Mental exhaustion. And the harsh, incessant glare of computer screens.

He jabbed at his keyboard until the display dimmed to its second lowest setting. It was still too bright. Scalding hot tears were leaking out from under his eyelids. He squinted at the clock. When was the last time he'd gotten up before sunrise on a Saturday morning?

 _Last week_ , he thought wryly. The first night he spent with Johanna, she'd woken him up with her snoring.

" _Mmph," she muttered, as he carefully lifted her head to pull his arm out from underneath._

_He held his breath. She stirred, jolting his unfeeling arm back to life, making his bones buzz with static._

_Her eyes still closed, she nuzzled his neck. Her lips parted and formed two words. "Fight me."_

_He exhaled. "Anytime," he whispered back, smiling._

_He knew she wasn't joking. But, at the same time, the challenge was strangely intimate, in a way that was almost comforting._

_He gazed down, trying to discern her features in the dark. Johanna. What was her last name? He'd have to find out in the morning. There were lots of things he'd have to find out in the morning._

_He wondered what she would want for breakfast._ Wienerbrød _? Too cliché._ Kringler _, maybe. Definitely coffee._

_She rolled over, releasing him, and went back to sleep._

Darius turned his attention back to his computer. As he pulled up the email Johanna had forwarded from her friend, Madge's name jumped out at him. _Margaret Undersee_ , he noted as he downloaded the attachments. _As in "under the sea"? The opposite of "oversee"? Or did someone just misspell Andersen? She looks Danish to me._

The stinging in his eyes faded away.

He cracked his knuckles, double-clicked the first PDF, and began to read.

 

_Ertu, ertu_

_Koma til trénu?_

_Yggdrasill þar er Oðinn hekk—_

 

Slender arms wrapped around his neck from behind. "What are you doing?" Johanna grumbled groggily. Her voice was muffled by his hair.

Darius turned his head and pressed his lips to the part of Johanna's body that was closest to him—the inside of her elbow. "Getting started on these translations for Madge. I've been procrastinating."

She blew a half-hearted raspberry. "Come back to bed."

"I will, in a bit." There was no rush, not really, but Madge and Gale were flying in this afternoon and he wanted to have something ready.

She planted a sleepy kiss on the top of his head. "'Kay."

As Johanna wandered back to the bedroom, Darius opened a blank document, resized the window so that it lined up right next to the Old Norse text, and started translating.

 

_Are you, are you_

_Coming to the tree?_

_Yggdrasil, where Odin hung_

' _Til rune-magic he did see._

_He said: "Nine nights I have stayed,_

_Sacrificed myself to me._

_No price is too high to pay_

_For the wisdom of the tree."_

 

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

 

_St. Paul, Minnesota_

 

Katniss was humming to herself.

Prim looked up from where she was lounging on the couch. "What song is that?"

The question caught Katniss off guard. "I don't know," she admitted. She sank down next to Prim and laid her head on her sister's lap. "It just popped into my head." One of their father's old lullabies? Something Rue was whistling at work? Or did Katniss come up with it herself?

"I think I've heard it before," Prim mused. "I think it's about a tree."

Prim loosened Katniss's braid and started combing her fingers through it. Off to the side, the cat hissed in jealousy. Katniss hissed back.

Prim giggled. "You and Buttercup are a lot alike."

Katniss glared at her. "Take that back."

"I think that's why I love him so much," Prim teased her. "He reminds me of my sister. You both might not look it, but deep down you're the biggest softies ever."

"Who are you calling a softie?" Katniss flexed her bicep experimentally. "Another month at the archery range with Dad, and these are going to be guns of steel."

They lapsed into relaxed silence, Katniss reading a book, Prim absentmindedly stroking her sister's hair while she scrolled through her phone.

This was the life. No worries. No distractions. And—for the moment—no Hawthorne boys.

After a while, Prim spoke up. "I remember that book," she said, gesturing toward the paperback in Katniss's hands. _The Golden Compass_.

"No spoilers," Katniss said automatically, even as she snuggled deeper into Prim's lap. "I've only just started."

"Which part are you on now?"

"Chapter Two. 'The Idea of North'," Katniss read aloud. 

 

" _That light," said the Chaplain, "is it going up or coming down?"_

" _It's coming down," said Lord Asriel, "but it isn't light. It's Dust."_

 

Prim nodded. "I should read it again. A lot of it went over my head the first time, and the movie was the worst."

"So far, I like the dæmons," Katniss said. The idea of souls manifesting as animal companions was comfortingly familiar. "I especially like that they aren't called spirit animals."

Prim considered this. "Yes, but later on there's some conflict with people they call skraelings—"

"No spoilers," Katniss reminded her.

"All right," Prim relented. "Anyway, why are you reading that now? I think I read it in middle school."

Behind the well-worn covers of the book, Katniss blushed. "Peeta gave me the entire trilogy. It's his favorite."

There was a pregnant pause. "Interesting," Prim said slowly.

Katniss lowered her book. "Why is it interesting?" she asked suspiciously.

Prim shrugged. "I guess I assumed Peeta was more of a _Chronicles of Narnia_ kind of guy." She tilted her head to one side thoughtfully. "That explains a lot, actually."

Katniss flipped back to the title page, where a younger version of Peeta had printed his name in neat, careful letters. Without realizing what she was doing, she brushed her thumb across the dried blue ink. _Peeta Mellark._ What would it have been like to know Peeta back then? It seemed like a lifetime ago.

"What do you mean, it explains a lot?" she asked her sister.

Prim smirked. "No spoilers."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

"Oh yeah, I was a real cutie back then," Peeta laughed. "Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Towheaded—my hair was almost white. And I had the pinkest cheeks you've ever seen."

Katniss was smiling so much, her face hurt. "I can just picture it."

She wasn't sure how it happened, but sometime over the past week she and Peeta had started talking on the phone. Not even on cell phones—on their _home_ phones. "I'm old-fashioned that way," he'd quipped.

She liked it. They'd been texting, and instant messaging, but this way they could talk all they wanted without looking at a screen or worrying about minutes or the battery or anything. And there was a certain nostalgia in using their old landline phone, curling up in bed with the receiver cradled in the crook of her neck and the cord twisted around her fingers.

But the best part of all was getting to know Peeta better.

"I don't have a lot of photos from when I was younger," he said. "But it's easy enough to imagine. Just think of every stereotype of a little Dutch boy ever."

"Dutch?" Katniss was surprised. "You're Dutch?"

"Yep. From Wisconsin. I even had the sailor outfit and everything."

"I guess I didn't expect it, you being Catholic and all."

"They are mostly Protestant," he acknowledged. "But there are Catholics, too, especially in small-town 'sconsin."

"So Mellark is a Dutch name?"

"I don't think it's a real last name. Nobody outside my family has it. Maybe my ancestors made it up centuries ago, when they first came to America. Or maybe it was a nickname that stuck."

"Does it mean anything in Dutch?"

"The closest translation I could find was 'flour boat'. Don't laugh—I come from a long line of bakers, and they would have come here on a ship. It makes sense."

"Flour… boat?"

" _Meel ark_. The first word is pronounced _male_ , but it has a double E. The Dutch like their double vowels," Peeta said. "It means flour."

The connection clicked into place. " _Meel_. Something milled. Like cornmeal."

"Exactly. Then the second word is _ark_ , like Noah's ark."

"That's so cool."

"I got the idea from a friend of mine, actually. Well, a Norwegian pen pal I used to have when I was a kid. She said _mel ark_ was Norwegian for 'flour boat'. So I checked it out, and it's almost exactly the same in Dutch. _Meel ark_."

A Norwegian pen pal? A _female_ Norwegian pen pal? A bubble of jealousy started to rise in her stomach, but Katniss pushed it down and tried to concentrate. " _Meel ark_ ," she repeated. "Isn't that kind of like saying… kind of like saying, 'saved by the bread'?"

He chuckled. "It's a possibility. Although I wouldn't go that far. 'Man does not live on bread alone' and all that."

"You run a soup kitchen," she pointed out. "You have to admit, the bread helps."

And at this point Katniss _wished_ that she was in the same room with Peeta, or at least that she was on video chat with him, because now she was certain she could hear him smile. "It does."

She was still sitting there with a stupid grin on her face when Peeta changed the subject. "Enough about my family," he said. "Tell me about yours."

"I don't know much about my mother's side," she confessed. "My parents eloped. I never even met anyone from that side of the family before Prim was born." Prim, the blonde, blue-eyed one, the child they had immediately accepted as one of their own. "They like her more than they like me."

"That's their loss," he said. "What about your dad's side?"

She laughed wryly. "They're all right. But they _still_ like Prim more than they like me. Everyone does." It was just a fact of life: Primrose attracted affection and admiration the same way that flowers attracted bees. "I'm not very likable."

"That's the opposite of true," he told her. "I like you."

 _That doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean anything at all._ "You like everyone."

If Johanna were there, she would have rolled her eyes so far back into her head, only the whites would be showing. "What are you, twelve?" she'd asked Katniss in their last Skype call. "He's calling you on the _phone_. And he's giving you _books_. Like he's from the _past_. Of course he likes you, brainless. What else could it mean?"

Speaking of Johanna…

"Oh, I almost forgot," Katniss said, trying not to dwell too much on what Peeta did or didn't mean. "Jo's thinking of getting a tattoo. I've been telling her about your paintings, and she was wondering if you could design one for her."

That was almost true. Except that she didn't really tell Johanna about Peeta's art, so much as gushed about it. And the idea of Peeta designing a tattoo for Johanna was more Katniss's brainchild than anything.

"I'd love to try," he replied. "You've been telling me so much about Jo, I feel like I've known her forever."

"I'll introduce you," Katniss promised. She glanced at the time. "Not now, though. The sun isn't even up yet in Denmark."

"It must be hard, staying in touch. What with the time difference and all."

"It's crazy when you think about how time zones work," she reflected. "Everything's happening all at once—the past, the present, and the future."

Peeta sucked in his breath softly. "Katniss Everdeen, that is the wibbliest, wobbliest thing I've ever heard."

"It's a _fact_ ," she insisted, laughing. "Besides, shouldn't it be wibbly-wobbliest, timey-wimeyest?"

"Beats me. I'm not The Doctor."

Katniss sighed. "Speaking of time, I should probably let you go to bed," she said reluctantly. Their chats and phone calls were getting longer and longer, even though they never felt that way to her. When was the last time she didn't feel drained after talking to someone for over an hour? The truth of the matter was, never.

"Well, technically, I already am in bed," Peeta said.

Her cheeks heated up. "So am I." She tugged at her hair until it was covering her face. "Um, except I'm sitting up."

"I'm lying down."

Her back slid down the wall until her head hit the pillows. "There, I'm lying down, too."

For a brief moment, she wondered what it would be like to sleep in the same bed as Peeta. To share his warmth. To bask in the glow of his presence. To lose herself in his kind, beautiful eyes as she fell asleep.

Then, almost as quickly as it came, the moment passed. _Say you like Peeta. Say he likes you back. Then what?_ Eight years ago, she and Gale had everything going for them: a solid foundation of friendship, families that supported their relationship, a shared culture. But even that wasn't enough, and it had taken everything she had to say goodbye to Gale. She didn't think she would ever have it in her to say goodbye to Peeta.

She was on the verge of hyperventilating when Peeta's voice cut through her thoughts. "Teeth all brushed, all tucked in… all we need now is a bedtime story."

It took her a few seconds to compose herself enough to respond. "I," she swallowed, "I only remember the Ojibwe ones."

"That's perfect," he said sincerely. "I'd love to hear them."

The realization that Peeta was serious—that he actually wanted her to tell him a bedtime story—gave her anxiety for a different reason entirely. "I'm not a very good storyteller," she warned him, wiping her clammy hands on her pajamas. "Especially with the traditional ones. I don't want to get them wrong, or not do them justice. My dad is the one you want to hear them from."

He had a gift, her father did. He had a singularly soothing voice, and a rhythm in his soul that made every story sound like the most wonderful song. But he always said it was because of _her_ , because of Katniss and Prim and their mother. _I tell stories because my heart is full of love,_ he said _. Love fills me up, and I overflow. There is nowhere else for the story to go._

"I want to hear them from you," Peeta said. "I mean, if that's okay with you. I won't ask you again if you don't want me to."

Her heart pounded against her ribcage, like a captive bird beating its wings, aching to take flight.

"Okay," she found herself saying. "I'll do it for you."

_I tell stories because my heart is full of love._

She cleared her throat. "Where should I start?"

_Love fills me up…_

"Where all stories start," Peeta said. "In the beginning."

… _and I overflow._

She took a deep breath.

_There is nowhere else for the story to go._

"In the beginning…"

 

_In the beginning, there was possibility._

_Some people call this God. Others call this, the Universe._

_We_ _call it_ Gichi-Manidoo _: the Great Spirit._

 

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

_When the Great Flood came and inundated Gichi-Manidoo's creation, Waynaboozhoo climbed on a log to escape the rising waters. Others joined him: animals that could swim, and animals that could fly._ _They all took turns resting on the log, and thus they survived._

_But when the flood did not recede, and land was nowhere to be found, Waynaboozhoo had an idea, and spoke it out loud._

_"I will dive into the water and find the mud made by Gichi-Manidoo._ _The old world is gone, but perhaps we can build one that is new."_

_So Waynaboozhoo jumped off the log and dove deep, as deep as he could go. But, try as he might, he could not go deep enough. He could not reach the old world below._

_One by one, the animals tried their luck. Loon, Beaver, Mink, Otter. But none of them could reach the bottom, either._

_When it seemed all hope was lost, Muskrat raised one tiny paw. "I want to try."_

_The other animals laughed, for he was such a small thing, and unaccustomed to deep water besides. But Muskrat would not change his mind. He knew he had to help, even if it meant he could die._

_And so brave little Muskrat took a deep breath and plunged into the water, out of sight._

_Waynaboozhoo and the animals waited for him._ _Day turned into night._

_Still, they waited for him._

_Finally, as the sun rose over the horizon, they saw_ _a small, lifeless body floating on the water. Brave little Muskrat was no longer._

_But there, tightly clenched in his little paw, was the mud they needed. Now they could make a new earth grow, because Muskrat gave his life for the seed._

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

 

_Oslo_

 

Fingers of gray light threaded the early morning sky.

"Muskrat died?" Madge whispered, her sleepy voice clouded with sorrow. She was curled up in Gale's arms, their hands clasped and resting on top of his shirt, above his heart.

"He did," Gale confirmed, squeezing her hand. "But there are a few different versions of the story. In the one I like best, Muskrat was brought back to life and honored for his bravery."

Neither of them had wanted to go to bed, so they had spread out Gale's borrowed sleeping pad and sleeping bag on the balcony. There they cuddled under the blankets, talking and telling stories, until the last star winked out and a new day dawned over Norway.

"And Waynaboozhoo's idea worked," he continued. "When he placed the earth on Turtle's back, wind blew from the four directions, spreading it in a circle and making it grow. The new world grew bigger and bigger, but Turtle bore the weight of it all on his back. And that's why we call this new land, Turtle Island."

The strap of Madge's camisole fell limply down her shoulder. He eased it back up without a second thought, and pulled the blankets higher for good measure.

"Oh," she murmured, burrowing deeper into his embrace. "I'm glad."

He held her close, listening quietly to the sound of her breathing. Her fingers, intertwined with his, twitched once, then twice. Then they became still.

He kissed her forehead. "So am I."

Later that day, they would be leaving Oslo, leaving Thom and Delly and all the friends they had made here, leaving for Copenhagen and—eventually—Stockholm.

The journey wasn't over. They had miles to go, people to meet, places to see.

But here, now, with Madge sleeping in his arms, there was nowhere else he would rather be.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

_STOCKHOLM (Agence France-Presse)—Another link between the Viking world and the lost Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Panym has emerged, this time in the form of a runic inscription discovered in Gotland, ninety kilometers off the southeastern coast of mainland Sweden._

_The inscription, carved into a stone about a foot wide and twice as high, is a memorial to a woman identified as "Delly of Panym"._

_It features the engraved image of a stylized bird now believed to be the legendary mockingjay of Panym._

_The stone is also notable for having two versions of the same inscription: one in Old Norse runes, and an Old English translation in the Latin alphabet._

" _Whoever commissioned it—and certainly the stonemason himself or herself—would have been very well immersed in both cultures," says archaeologist Alton Dahlström of Uppsala University._

_The inscription itself lends credence to this theory._

_It contains references to the woman's children, who have names of Christian and Norse origin. Her husband is given the epithet "The Scarred", which—taken together with the location of the discovery—suggests a Viking, Varangian, or Rus' warrior background._

_Gotland is a gateway to the Baltic states, Poland, Finland, and beyond. Viking Age rune stones all over the island memorialize merchants and mercenaries traveling as far afield as present-day Russia, Turkey, and Iraq._

_Other rune stones, like the smaller Panym stone, are raised in remembrance of loved ones._

_Dahlström says it is hoped the Panym stone will lead to further developments in the search for a kingdom lost in the mists of time._

" _In life, Delly of Panym was a beloved wife and mother," Dahlström says. "But, in death, she symbolizes the hope that things that are once lost, may not be gone forever."_

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Sunlight came flooding in through the window.

Thom watched, spellbound, as the liquid gleam poured over Delly's curves. It meandered over the rise of her hip and pooled at the dip of her waist, transforming her valleys and peaks into a landscape of gold.

Eyelids fluttered open. "What are you looking at, froggy?" she asked sleepily.

The light made her radiate with an unearthly glow, almost like a halo. "An angel, I think."

Delly propped herself up on one elbow. Her tousled hair cascaded in a dark waterfall past her shoulders, flowing between the slopes of her breasts like a Norwegian fjord. "You _think_?" she teased him.

"I could be wrong." He trailed a finger up her strong, supple thigh. "After all, she's a Viking. She could be a valkyrie."

She laughed throatily. "You do know angels and valkyries are both terrifying things to be."

"All I know is, I'm looking at the most beautiful thing in the world to me."

A deep rose tinted the apples of her cheeks. " _Froggy_."

Thom leaned over and kissed her full on the lips. "Did you like it, last night?"

"Of _course_." She reached up and tenderly traced the scar on his cheek. "I thought that was obvious. Why would you even ask?"

"It's my job to make sure, _ikke sant_?"

Delly's smile could outshine any sunrise. " _Sant_."

He hadn't expected to go all the way, last night. _We can work up to it,_ he'd managed to say, when they came back from the concert and the bedroom door closed behind them. No brothers, no friends, just the two of them alone at last.

But then she had peeled the shirt right off his back. _I'm worked up,_ she'd assured him, her breath hot in his ear. _Believe me, I'm_ very _worked up._

And now, looking at Delly in all her sunlit glory, Thom was getting very worked up again, himself.

"Mm," she sighed when his lips brushed the sensitive spot just under her ear, right where the jaw ends and the neck begins. "We really should make breakfast for the others first… and brush our teeth… and take a shower."

"Sounds good." But even as he said it, he was already licking the inner contours of her breasts, making his way down her belly, pushing his nose into the pillowy soft flesh of her mound. _I like it this way,_ she'd said last night, when he parted the lace of her French-cut panties and found that she was completely bare down there. _It makes me feel sexy._

The idea that Delly needed to do _anything_ to feel desirable was as ludicrous now as it was then. "You're amazing," he murmured, grazing his teeth across the rose petal smoothness of her lips. Her intoxicating musk filled his nostrils. "You are so, so sexy."

She gripped the headboard behind her as her hips bucked with need. " _Ah_ ," she hissed, biting her lip. "I don't want the others to hear."

He hitched her leg up onto his shoulder and spread her wider. "If anyone complains, we can just blame it on Cookie Monster."

"Everyone _knows_ who"—she gasped in mid-sentence as his tongue found her clit—"who Cookie Monster is."

"Exactly."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

The smell of sizzling bacon finally lured them out of the bedroom.

"We had a feeling you wanted to sleep in," Lakshmi said, giving her roommates a little wink. Then, she yelled: "Watch out!"

Gale, who was manning the frying pan, jumped back as a glob of rendered fat exploded in his direction. He narrowly escaped. "Hell's teeth."

Thom turned the burner down to medium-low. " _Tabarnak_ , are you trying to set the place on fire?"

" _Aiyoh_ ," Lakshmi groaned, grabbing the nearest knitted dish cloth to wipe up the oil splattered on the floor.

Delly picked her way past the chaos to Madge, who was carefully teasing a freshly cooked waffle out of the waffle iron. "I couldn't find buttermilk, so I put sour cream in the batter," Madge informed her. "Hope that's all right with you."

"All right?" Delly beamed as she fell in beside her. "That's exactly how I like it. Sour cream waffles with cloudberry jam and brunost."

Thom started taking out jars and bottles from the cupboard. "For me, this calls for good old Canadian maple."

He gave Delly a quick pinch on the bum, making her jump. " _Thomas_!" she squeaked.

Soon the five of them were seated and having brunch at the kitchen table. "Did you all have a good sleep?" Delly asked, shaving a curl of brunost from the top of the block as she did so.

Madge and Gale's eyes met across the table. "We did, thank you," Madge answered with a smile. "Not a lot of sleep, but it was good."

"You'll need all the sleep you can get if you're visiting Jo," Thom advised as he poured maple syrup on his waffles. "It's going to be one nonstop party for the foreseeable future."

"Oh, speaking of which…" Lakshmi pulled out her phone. "Have you all seen Alfie's Snapchat?"

"Alfie's _Snapchat_?" Delly repeated incredulously. "You have Alfie's Snapchat? I didn't even know Alfie had Snapchat!"

"That's because you're his big sister, and I'm his big sister's cool friend." Lakshmi slid her phone across the table to Delly. "Here."

"What's next? Are you inviting him to your wedding in Singapore?" Delly groused.

"It came up, actually. But he's too scared to go anywhere you can get the death penalty for pot."

Madge and the boys crowded around Delly as she swiped through Lakshmi's screenshots. "I remember this one," Delly said, zooming in on a photo captioned _FAMILY SELFIE_.

The next photo had Delly and Thom obliviously kissing in one corner while Alfie faced the camera, his hands grasping the sides of his face, his mouth wide open and frozen in horror. And, in the translucent black bar underneath, the caption: « _SKRIK_ » _AV EDVARD MUNCH_.

"Hey," Gale said in recognition. "We saw that painting at the museum a couple of days ago."

Delly shook her head. "Really, Alfie? A _Scream_ reference at a heavy metal concert?" That was a little _too_ much Norwegian angst, even for her brother.

"Can you send me the pictures?" Gale requested, getting up to grab his phone from the living room. "Bristel's definitely going to want to see those."

After a few moments, Gale reappeared, waving his phone in the air and looking relieved. "I got the job offer," he reported, standing behind Madge's chair, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder. "The email came through yesterday, I just didn't see it until now. Good salary, good benefits… all I need now is a place to live in Stockholm."

Madge tugged on Gale's shirt until he dipped his head and kissed her. "Congratulations!"

The kiss happened so quickly, so naturally, that no one thought to question it. "Well done!" Delly congratulated him. "When do you start?"

"Two weeks' notice, plus three months of non-compete… I'd say as early as August or September."

"No point going back to the US, la," Lakshmi quipped. "Just stay here with us. There's lots of things to do. Alfie and the boys are doing their Russ, then there's Constitution Day and Eurovision."

Something else caught Gale's attention. He let out a groan and showed Madge his phone. "Finn sent me a link. He posted behind-the-scenes stuff from the shoot on Instagram. And now I have about a dozen messages from my sister."

"What?" Madge exclaimed.

The others clustered around them to have a look. Madge and Gale had mentioned the photo shoot in Iceland before, and they'd even shown them some candids on their phones. But the new, professional photos were so crisp and high-res that they seemed to leap off the screen. There were several surfing action shots, a photo of Madge and her best friend Annie forming two halves of a heart with their hands, another picture of the famous Finnick Odair with his arm around Gale's shoulder.

"Wow," Thom said in awe. "Finnick Odair touched you."

Gale rubbed his shoulder reverently. "I know."

"He didn't post the—" Madge stopped abruptly.

Lakshmi's ears perked up. "The what?" she asked eagerly.

"The… other stuff," Madge finished lamely.

"This is just a teaser," Gale said. "He's probably saving the rest for when the official ad campaign comes out in the fall."

"What did Posy say?" Thom wanted to know.

Gale read his messages aloud. " _Mate this book is wild_ —no, wait, that's still Finn." He tapped on the screen a few times. "Here we go. Posy. _I cannot believe. My own brother._ _You're famous!_ Then the rest is just keyboard smash."

"Sounds like Posy Hawthorne, all right," Thom agreed with a smile.

"The book," Madge said suddenly. "Finn said something about your book?"

Gale checked again. "Yeah. And Annie copied me on a message to you. She said to Skype them as soon as we meet up with Jo and Darius."

"Darius is the one who's translating your books, right?" Delly asked Madge. "The linguist."

Madge nodded, and Thom chuckled. "I still can't believe that's not a euphemism."

Madge chewed on her lip. "I'm actually kind of nervous about meeting him. Especially if he's already working on the translations. Those books have been in my family for so long, but no one has any idea what they're about… or why we even have those books at all."

"Well, now's your chance to find out," Delly said encouragingly.

Madge smiled gratefully. "On one hand, I almost feel like I don't want to know." She touched the Mjolnir pendant around her neck. "But on the other hand… it feels like the moment of truth."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

 

_Oslo (Gardermoen) Airport_

 

"I guess this is it," Thom said.

Without warning, Gale was overwhelmed with a feeling of preemptive nostalgia. With a longing for something that he still had, but was about to lose. "I guess it is."

Things would never be the same again. Up until that moment, Gale had taken it for granted that Thom and Bristel would always be there. It had never occurred to him that one day he and his friends would live in different cities, let alone different countries and continents. But now Thom was making a new home for himself in Oslo, and if things went according to plan, Gale would do the same, for a few years at least, in Stockholm. From now on, there would be no more waking up at the crack of dawn to play pond hockey together, no more staying up _until_ the crack of dawn binge-watching shows together.

It was the end of an era.

Thom coughed. "Tell Brenner," he began, "that if he wanted to keep his roommates, he shouldn't have put mayonnaise in the shampoo."

Gale was grateful for the distraction. "To be fair, that was the week I got the most compliments on my hair ever."

"I smelled like a salad for days."

"What's so bad about that? You've got all that lettuce on your head now."

Madge wiggled her fingers in Gale's hand. "Don't forget the present," she reminded him. At first he thought she meant the _present_ , as opposed to the past or the future, but then she clarified: "The present you got for Thom and Bristel at the museum."

"Oh, yeah." Gale pushed his sleeve up, revealing three identical arm rings that looked a little like the silver bracelet Finn always wore. He plucked one off and held it up for everyone to see. "This is for you. I'm going to give Bris the other one when I get home. It's—"

"—A Viking friendship bracelet," Thom finished, the scar on his cheek deepening as he broke into a broad grin.

Gale chuckled. "Well, I was going to say it was a symbol of loyalty and allegiance among warriors, but I guess that's fine, too."

It fit Thom perfectly. "Aw, man. You shouldn't have."

"It's not real silver," Gale admitted sheepishly. "Just pewter."

"It's perfect. Thank you."

"It's the least I could do."

It _was_ a friendship bracelet, now that Gale thought about it. Of course, at the time, he had bought it mostly out of guilt. It was a visible, tangible reminder that he should be fighting _for_ his friends, not against them.

Fortunately, guilt was no longer part of the equation. Not anymore. It was funny, the way things started falling into place once Gale understood that Thom's friendship and Madge's well-being were more important than his ego.

Thom held up his wrist, looking at his new arm ring with admiration. It was a cuff, instead of a closed circle, and each end was shaped like an animal head. "What kind of bird is that?"

"Ravens," Gale replied. "That's what it said on the display."

"Kind of reminds me of Katniss and Prim's necklaces," Thom remarked. "You know, the gold ones they wear on special occasions."

Gale realized with a start that it was true. "You're right." Was that why he picked the raven design? Back at the gift shop, he'd gravitated toward these three arm rings because they were the only ones that were different—the only ones that didn't have the more popular wolf or dragon heads. But now that Thom mentioned it…

"I should give Catnip a call," he said.

Thom's eyebrows lifted in surprise, and Gale knew they were both thinking the same thing: that he hadn't called her Catnip in years.

Gale pressed a kiss to Madge's temple. Not too long ago, he'd been full of anger, self-pity, and regret. And he still had a lot to learn, and plenty of room to grow. But now there was also hope. "Catnip and I have some catching up to do."

Thom smiled. "I'm glad to hear it."

He turned to Delly and asked her something in Norwegian. She nodded without hesitation.

Thom pulled his keys out of his pocket. "Dell and I want you to have this." He detached the keychain and placed it in Gale's palm. "Every warrior should have his own _tennstål_."

Gale looked down at the flint and steel in his hand. It wasn't an exact replica of a Viking artifact, like the arm rings were. But this modern version was based on the same underlying principle as the ones in the museum.

"A Swedish firesteel," Gale said.

Delly clicked her tongue good-naturedly. "Try again."

"A _Norwegian_ firesteel?" he guessed. He knew Delly had the exact same one—Alfie had tried to borrow it last night, for his cigarettes, before Thom offered his lighter.

She nodded in satisfaction. "That's better."

Gale closed his fingers around the firesteel. "This is awesome," he said sincerely. "Thanks."

It was time to go. "I'll be back in a few months," he promised, adjusting the remaining arm rings on his wrist. "If everything goes well with the new job."

He went in for a fist bump, but Thom swatted his hand away. "I want to tell you Norway is superior in every way," he joked as they hugged it out. "But you already know the hockey's much better in Sweden."

Gale had to laugh. "I knew I was moving to Stockholm for a reason."

"Yeah, but don't forget Canada beat Sweden in Sochi. So in the end, I still win."

"Asshole."

" _Crosseur_."

Thom punched Gale's arm lightly. Then he took one step back, and it was as if Thom and Delly were quicksilver, two separate beads of mercury flowing back together.

Gale reached out and Madge was there, meeting him halfway, her fingers effortlessly filling the spaces between his own.

They'd all come a long way, and they had even longer to go.

It was the end of an era, but it wasn't the end of the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Miigwech_ and _hartelijk bedankt_ to this chapter's betas and consultants: **Solaryllis** , **SparklesMartini** , **cupcakesinnewyork** , **PrincessJasmin** , and **justkeepdancingthroughlife**. You guys ROCK. (As always, all remaining mistakes are mine.)
> 
> For the Ojibwe words, I followed the spelling used by the Ojibwe People's Dictionary project at the University of Minnesota.
> 
> The verse Darius translates in the first scene is from ["Odin's Hanging Tree"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5774374). The Panym stone is from ["Requiem"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6445162).
> 
> Speaking of translating, I'm finally starting to learn Old Norse! It's a slow process and I'm 99% sure I've messed up the few lines I've attempted in this chapter, but it makes me happy to learn.
> 
> P.S. I'm really living up to the title of this fic, aren't I?


End file.
